What Occurs to the Physique in Space?

Originally skilled as a virologist, Bowles was amongst 9 principal investigators recruited by NASA into its Space Radiation Element program to mitigate the dangerous results of house radiation on astronauts’ well being.

“Astronauts who are going to be traveling to Mars or who are going to be living on the moon are going to be continually hit, bombarded with this kind of radiation. It is a serious risk for human health.”

Dawn Bowles

Her workforce conducts its analysis at a singular facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, dwelling to the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory.

“It’s a really neat, nifty, unique thing that NASA has developed,” she stated.  “They actually can simulate as closely as possible what the radiation environment looks like in space here on Earth.”

As a outcome, different research which have examined the cardiovascular results of house radiation on astronauts have been unable to generate agency conclusions.

Studies in animals have proven that radiation can result in stiffening of the arteries, injury to the center’s construction, and modifications in how the center beats.

“We’ve identified that there might definitely be a problem, at least in animal models,” stated Bowles. “We’re doing additional studies to understand the mechanisms behind this problem and whether we can remedy it.”

Clues from the Lab and from Space

Bowles and her workforce use superior instruments to review how radiation impacts tissues on the molecular degree. “We do a lot of very advanced molecular omics — genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics,” she stated, referring to the research of DNA, RNA and proteins.  “We try to look at the tissues or cells very holistically.”

In addition to exploring methods to guard astronauts from radiation injury, Bowles’ workforce is investigating whether or not present drugs may assist. “We have a paper under review where we analyzed our data to see if there were any drugs that could be repurposed,” she stated. “NASA’s just looking at ways to do this as economically as possible. If something already exists, why not use it?”

While her workforce hasn’t but studied dietary modifications, she believes their knowledge may very well be used to discover that too.

“NASA really invests in these deep characterizations because these data sets go into their repository,” she stated. “There’s a whole group of scientists at NASA doing data mining to gain new insights.” That data, Bowles famous, may be made out there for different scientists to judge.

Though the analysis is targeted on house, it may additionally profit individuals on Earth. “There’s personnel in the medical field, like interventional cardiologists, who are exposed to low levels of radiation over time, who might develop similar cardiovascular effects,” Bowles famous. “Maybe we can find something protective for the heart for a patient undergoing cancer treatment. There is potential for saving human lives.”

Does Radiation Affect People Differently?

There’s nonetheless a lot to study, particularly about how radiation impacts completely different sexes and species. “Most early studies were done with male mice,” Bowles stated. “Now we’re doing studies with both sexes to see if there are differences.”

She added that also they are including one other part to the research — microgravity or weightlessness to higher mimic the complete house setting.

Bowles’ analysis, till now, has been funded by NASA. Despite funding uncertainties, Bowles stays optimistic.

“I’m very blessed to be able to work in an exciting field like this,” she stated. “We’re uncovering biological mechanisms and responses that no one’s really looked at before. It’s all new ground and it’s very exciting.”

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