![]() By taking examples from regenerative medicine and immune-oncology, we can begin to design cellular therapeutics that may further protect astronauts and allow for missions of longer duration.Īccording to NASA, there are five main hazards of human spaceflight: radiation, gravity, distance (from Earth), hostile enclosed environments, and isolation. Further advances have been made on Earth for cellular therapeutics, which are continuously changing the paradigm of treatment for many diseases-especially in cancer. ![]() This has also given us new insight into how radiation, microgravity, isolation, and stress affect the body, as well as new tools for monitoring changes in astronaut health.īuilding on this work, many space agencies and research groups are now focusing on leveraging the methods of “precision medicine” to increase the safety of astronaut missions and improve long-term astronaut health and safety. This study used recent technological advances to create extensive molecular maps of the cellular and genetic changes that occur in astronauts, including alterations in DNA, RNA, proteins, lipids, metabolites, and the microbiome. More recently, the NASA Twin Study 10 created a unique, multi-omics analysis of a pair of monozygotic twins that examined spaceflight-related changes on a more comprehensive level than has ever been done before. 1–9 In the past decade, omics studies have given us a closer look at cellular processes that indicate genetic, transcriptional, translational, inflammatory, and metabolic responses to the space environment. Previous studies have demonstrated numerous human spaceflight-induced complications, such as cardiovascular alterations, bone and muscle loss, ocular dysfunction, risk of malignancy, hematological issues, and behavioral changes. This paper will discuss the overall risks astronauts face during spaceflight, what is currently known about human response to these risks, what pharmaceutical interventions exist for use in space, and which tools of precision medicine and cellular engineering could be applied to aerospace and astronaut medicine. Further, by exploring new developments in pre-clinical models and clinical trials, we can begin to design potential cellular interventions for exploration-class missions to Mars and potentially farther. These rich data identified epigenetic, gene expression, inflammatory, and metabolic responses to spaceflight, facilitating a better biomedical roadmap of features that should be monitored and safe-guarded in upcoming missions. The Twin Study, a multi-year, multi-omic study of human response to spaceflight, provided detailed and comprehensive molecular and cellular maps of the human response to radiation, microgravity, isolation, and stress. is been shown that spaceflight-induced molecular, cellular, and physiologic changes cause alterations across many modalities of the human body, including cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, hematological, immunological, ocular, and neurological systems. We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. Cernan retired from the US Navy after a 20-year career in 1976 and left NASA at the same time. Apollo 17 was the last manned mission to the moon for the United States. He went on to serve as the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 10 mission in 1969 before taking the role of spacecraft commander for Apollo 17 in December 1972. During his time as an astronaut, Cernan logged over 500 hours in space and he spent more than 73 of those on the surface of the moon.Ĭaptain Cernan's NASA career began in 1963 and he made his first trip to space as part of the three-day Gemini IX mission in 1966. ![]() Today, the retired US Navy captain died at age 82. Gene Cernan was the second American to walk in space and the last set foot on the moon during that mission. ![]() NASA has continued its exploration of the moon since Apollo 17, but it has been over 40 years since one of its astronauts stepped on the surface. ![]()
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