MSGID: 1:3828/7 a4020087
Your Immune System... In Space
 
Getting sick when you're far from home is a drag. You'd give anything to crawl
into your own soft bed and sleep, but you're stuck in a cookie-cutter hotel
room feeling like a sick fish out of water. Well, it could be worse.
 
You could be an astronaut on the way to Mars -- a really long way from mom's
chicken soup.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpFcGIUlg3I
 
Future space travelers will need to stay healthy to perform well for their own
safety and for mission success. So it's important to understand how extended
space travel will affect them.
 
The immune system works unnoticed to protect the body, but even subtle changes
in that all-important system may be linked to the onset of illness. Factors
like radiation, microgravity, stress, and altered sleep cycles could all affect
astronaut immune systems. A new NASA study entitled `Functional Immune' will
investigate the immune system changes that occur in International Space Station
(ISS) crewmembers. Understanding these immune system changes may help
scientists pinpoint the onset of illness, and suggest monitoring strategies, or
treatments, that can boost the immune system and prevent full-blown infections
and diseases here on Earth.
 
Functional Immune builds upon the results of several previous NASA studies of
the immune system, which, according to Johns Hopkins University Scientist Dr.
Mark Shelhamer "tell us there is no place during spaceflight where we see
stabilization of the immune system."
 
In 2014, NASA's Integrated Immune study showed abnormalities can occur in
immune cells in ISS crewmembers' blood during flight. Normally, the immune
system attacks and eliminates virus infected cells. When cell activity is
depressed, the immune system isn't responding to threats as it should. When
cell activity heightens, the immune system reacts excessively, which can result
in illness, increased allergy symptoms, and persistent rashes. ISS crews were
also observed to experience reactivation of `latent' viruses from childhood, a
finding directly related to reduced immune function.
 
The Integrated Immune team, working with the NASA Nutrition Laboratory, also
measured the concentration of cytokines in blood plasma - the proteins that
"marshal the forces," to an infected or injured body site to defend against
invaders. The data indicated that changes can be seen in blood cytokines just
as changes can be seen in cell function.
 
Dr. Brian Crucian of NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), principal investigator
of the Functional Immune study says, "The immune system is very complex, and
several aspects of immunity remain uninvestigated during spaceflight.  We now
need to delve deeper into the immune system changes that happen in space, and
also determine if immune changes during flight elevate clinical risks for
astronauts in future deep-space missions.  All the factors that change immunity
on the ISS will be worse on longer missions to an asteroid or to Mars."
 
Functional Immune includes NASA scientists and external collaborators at the
Johnson Space Center radiation lab, the University of Houston, and the State
University of New York. The study  will reach beyond any previous space immune
study and include exciting newer tests such as transcriptomics and proteomics.
These tests will happen in parallel with the assessment of immune cells in
blood, stress, and virus reactivation.
 
Crucian says, "With the ISS, we have a unique opportunity to study very healthy
people in a `quasi-isolation chamber', yet experiencing all the stressors that
are specific to spaceflight."
 
Results should help clarify the influence of spaceflight-specific environmental
factors on immunity and identify countermeasures to mitigate their effects.
 
These studies could improve scientists understanding of the immune system,
making a positive impact on human health at home and while traveling both near
and far.
 
For more from the international space station, go to www.nasa.gov/station
 
For more news about spaceflight, and the strange things it does to the human
body, visit science.nasa.gov
 
 
Regards,
 
Roger

--- PQUSA