Astronauts Robert L. Curbeam Jr. (left) and Christer Fuglesang on the International Space Station NASA More light could be shed on how space flight affects astronauts’ after the creation of the first “space-omics” biobank – a collection of thousands of blood and tissue samples, plus medical information, taken over multiple space missions.
These include missions to the International Space Station, as well as the first all-civilian space flight, , which took four non-government-trained astronauts into space for three days in 2021. Called the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA), the resource contains detailed medical data, such as on DNA damage and changes in people’s gene activity and immune system functioning, collectively known as biomarkers. Advertisement Read more Space flight is known to pose certain health risks.
For instance, astronauts lose bone density and muscle mass due to the lack of gravity, and higher levels of radiation in seem to cause cell and DNA damage, which have a range of impacts on the body. These effects may be why in later life and after being in space. Collecting astronauts’ medical data in a consistent way via the SOMA biobank will help researchers understand more about these changes and potentially develop ways to mitigate them, says at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who helped put the biobank together.
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