Space Travel Helps Us Understand the Immune System

It used to be that we knew so little about the microgravity of space that we'd send dogs up in pressurized cabins just to see how they fared. Now, we know enough to the point where we are actually using space as ideal conditions for medical research, exposing secrets of the human immune system.

It has long been known that an astronaut's immune system won't work as well in microgravity as it will on Earth. Knowing why exactly this occurs is essential if NASA and other space agencies want to keep their explorers safe and healthy. However, this knowledge can also lead to new treatments for people suffering from impaired immune systems back on Earth.

And that's where NASA and the European Space Agency's (ESA) latest experiments on the International Space Station (ISS) come in. The test set called TripleLux-B will be heading to the ISS later this month, with its companion set, TripleLux-A, following aboard the SpaceX Dragon's sixth mission resupply mission.

Both these experiments will be looking at large white blood cells called leukocytes - the body's first line of defense against infection - and how their function can be recovered. The researchers will also be considering several different model cells, such as the leukocytes of blue mussels, which easy to harvest, but may function differently than the cells in humans or lab rats.

"Our goal with TripleLux-B is to find out whether the cells of the immune system of the mussel, which is older in an evolutionary sense, are affected in the same way as those in the immune system of an astronaut - or, in this case, a rat," Peter-Diedrich Hansen, principle investigator and senior research scientist at Germany's Berlin Institute for Technology, explained in a statement.

"A major challenge is finding out if our cellular machinery is able to work without gravitational force or if our cellular architecture will keep us dependent on Earth's gravity," added TripleLux-A Principle Investigator Oliver Ullrich, also from Germany.

Of course, these aren't the only gravitational experiments going on in the ISS. Astronauts will also be keeping tabs on the Rodent Habitat module, allowing for rats to be comfortable while they are studied during an extended stay in space.

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