A Northwestern-led research team is one of 10 NASA-funded groups across the country studying identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly to learn how living in space for a long period of time, such as a mission to Mars affects the human body. While Scott spends a year in space, his brother, Mark, also a veteran NASA astronaut, will remain on Earth, as a ground-based control. The study will allow researchers to understand how the long-term exposure to space impacts the human brain and body and how the space environment affects the microbiota in the intestinal tract.
“What we really want to know is what is going to happen to the human body with prolonged time in space and after a return to Earth?” says Fred W. Turek, who is leading the study of how the space environment affects the microbiota “ecosystem” in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Turek’s research team includes Northwestern colleague Martha H. Vitaterna, Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology, and collaborators from Rush University Medical School and the University of Illinois Chicago.
The same interdisciplinary research team is also planning a parallel study in mice. NASA recently selected Turek’s team as one of 16 new life science projects to be carried out onboard the International Space Station at a future time. Using biological samples collected from the Kelly brothers before, during and after Scott Kelly’s year in space, the researchers will use DNA sequences to identify the microbes inhabiting the gastrointestinal tracts of the twin astronauts.
In the mouse study, the researchers will study genetically identical mice in space and on Earth. They will examine the effects of long-term spaceflight on hundreds of different microbes in the animals’ gastrointestinal tract as well as the impact of any microbiota changes on physiology and behavior. Ground-based experiments will complement those carried out onboard the International Space Station. This study will allow the researchers to look at physiological systems they are not investigating in the study of the Kelly twins. Beginning March 2015, Scott Kelly will spend a year at the International Space Station, the longest space mission ever assigned to a NASA astronaut while his brother remains on Earth, at home in Arizona with his wife, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
The NASA Human Exploration Research Opportunities (HERO) project at Northwestern is centered on sequencing of the microbiome of the twin astronauts. It is also complementary to nine other biomolecular research projects that seek to integrate omics-based studies on the effects of spaceflight and will involve data-sharing and data analyses with other twin study team members. (Omics is a rapidly growing field of study in biology ending in omics, such as genomics, proteomics or metabolomics.)
“Comparing a wide range of biomarkers linked with the health of a wide range of mental and physiological processes in genetically identical twins before, during and after space flight will allow us to better understand how the long-term exposure to the space environment impacts the human brain and body,” Turek says. “This is information that will be vital for missions to Mars and beyond that will involve astronauts living in space for three or more years.” The complex ecological microbiology community that inhabits the human gastrointestinal tract (GI) tract influences normal physiology and behavior and susceptibility to disease. Despite the clear importance of the GI microbiota for maintaining overall health and influencing disease state, the effects of the spaceflight environment on the human microbiome remains unknown.
“Thus, it is imperative that studies be carried out on long-term missions in space so that any adverse changes can be identified and countermeasures can be employed to insure the safety and health of our astronauts on extended spaceflight missions,” says Turek who is the director of Northwestern’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology.
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