Science in Space: STS-107 Fundamental Biology Program (2002)

[Music] so the vision for the future our mandate ought to be 30 to improve life here to extend life to their into fine life beyond NASA's mission must be driven by the science not by some destination we will go where the science dictates that we go not because as close orbit it is popular well it may be the interesting thing to do we're going where the fundamental questions that we seek to answer potatoes [Music] get a lot or a little one [Music] in his early years NASA focused on the science and technology that would get man to the moon and back but that ball achieved NASA's focus shifted to expanding its scientific research efforts to take advantage of microgravity or the near weightlessness experienced by astronauts when in orbit around the Earth today with regular Space Shuttle missions and the advent of the International Space Station access to this microgravity environment is unprecedented and presents frequent research opportunities for scientists all over the world on any given shuttle mission there are literally dozens of payload experiments flown on board each of the shuttle experiments is part of eight different research programs in NASA's Office of biological and physical research the experiments study humans supported space material sciences the earth and space environment and product development in the fundamental space biology program the focus is to use space flight and ground based research to study the fundamental processes of life such as development biological functions and evolution since microgravity affects living things in very critical and specific ways let's look at the fundamental biology program experiments that are flying on the shuttle mission designated sts-107 for sts-107 NASA's Ames Research Center in California and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida have teamed up to put six fundamental biology experiments onboard the space shuttle Columbia each of these six experiments is led by a different principle investigator three of the principal investigators are studying the effect of microgravity on mammalian physiology using the rat as a model another principal investigator is studying the effect of spaceflight on bacteria and the remaining two principal investigators are studying the effects of microgravity on plants payload specialist astronauts flying on sts-107 have been meticulously trained to perform and maintain not only these six experiments but the more than 39 experiments flying on this mission that is a lot of training but both the astronauts and the experiments themselves have undergone years of planning and preparation to be ready for lunch for the scientists their journey started with a proposal to NASA which had to pass through a rigorous review before selection for Space Flight then the experiments were tested repeatedly on earth to ensure that each one has the best opportunity for success in space in addition each experiment must be compatible with specially designed space flight equipment and comply with these shuttles limited resources of crew time volume weight and power now let's learn more about those six fundamental biology experiments many physiological changes take place when astronauts go into space including adapting to microgravity cardiovascular changes and changes in the distribution of the body's fluids the three scientists studying rats are examining the mechanisms involved in these changes so they can learn more about them in the first experiment dr. gay hosting of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine is studying the structural reaction of the brain to a completely new environment specifically she's studying the part of the cerebellum that receives balance and positional information from the inner ear let's start at the beginning you know that there are gravity sensors in the ear and those gravity sensors are accustomed to what we call a 1g force the gravitational force field on and those sensors detect minor changes minor fluctuations in that force of gravity as we move our head and as we move on earth those sensors send the signal into the brain into particular groups of cells in different parts of the brain when an astronaut is launched into space what happens is that there's a sudden transition from this one g-force that the nervous system has developed in so all of a sudden that force is changed from the constant 1g to a very very small percentage like a million of that force of gravity phase modification syndrome is one of the experiences that astronauts have while they're in the process of adapting to this new microgravity environment there is also a period of reallocation when astronauts returned to earth both of these are considered to be processes that have a brain basis a neural basis I'm studying a part of the brain that's called the cerebellum and it's located right back here the small brain and the cerebellum is best known for its importance in the timing of movements and coordination I'm looking at this one portion of the cerebellum that is the portion that receives gravity information from the ear and I'm comparing the structure of the cerebellum of that from the vestibular portion the balance portion was another part of the cerebellum that receives no gravity information and no sensory perceptive information and so forth which presumably should not be affected by a microgravity experience my question is do I see a difference in the architecture of the portion of the cerebellum that receives gravity information in experimental animals that have been in microgravity and have just returned so I'm looking for the structural basis for this reorganization in the brain that occurs during the reallocation process the next experiment is being conducted by dr. Michael dealt of texas A&M university dr delp is studying the specifics of how the cardiovascular system changes during spaceflight basis of our experiment is really to understand the effects of microgravity on the cardiovascular system the body is designed to adapt like a weightlifter an athlete adapts to training they become stronger or faster in microgravity the body also adapts and when astronauts come back to earth after being in microgravity for a relatively short period of time many of them are unable to stand and it's because they cannot maintain an adequate blood pressure and so the purpose of our study is to really try and understand why do the regulatory processes that govern blood pressure why are they altered in microgravity and those involved the heart the veins and the arteries within the body one of the properties of arteries and veins is that the wall is composed primarily a smooth muscle cells and that's how these blood vessels constrict and then they dilate by the smooth muscle cells relaxing and in microgravity we believe that the smooth muscle cells actually atrophy because they're not used as much just like skeletal muscle and so when the astronauts return to Earth these muscle cells are not as strong they cannot constrict the arteries or the veins as well and so there are problems with blood pooling and also with regulation of blood pressure and so when the astronauts come back they stand in an upright position their blood pressure is abnormally low and so therefore there's not enough blood going to the brain so we want to understand exactly what is happening to these arteries veins and then also the heart whether the heart is getting smaller in microgravity so whether microgravity alters the structure and the function of the arteries and veins has virtually never been looked at so we're very excited to see whether or what is happening and those are really that the focus of our studies dr. Jacqueline Gabry on of the université pierre and marie curie and paris is studying the regulatory mechanisms which control the production of cerebrospinal fluid in microgravity g2g deepika of the newly regulation do for the last several years i have studied the body's production of cerebral spinal fluid the liquid that surrounds our brain and is secreted by a small organ called the choroid plexus the choroid plexus is very sensitive to physiological and environmental conditions during produced shuttle missions we were able to demonstrate that microgravity affected the ability of the choroid plexus to produce cerebral spinal fluid following these first experiments we decided to continue studying the control of this production this experiment entails studying rats to obtain clues on particular proteins which are called aquaporins the channels that transfer water from one compartment to another through biological membranes these proteins are very important for the brain but also for the kidney and the land we plan to study not only these mechanisms but also the neurotransmitter receptors which are expressed in the choroid plexus a cure long to come currently we are quite confident that new results will confirm or previous findings which are that adaptation to microgravity triggers a reduction of the cerebral spinal fluid production and this reduction is controlled by the aquaporins proteins that transport water and by the neuro hormonal regulation which affect the choroid plexus with the help of this kind of information I believe we will be better able to understand the fundamental function and fundamental physiology of this Oregon and also get a better handle on how it adapts to the extreme conditions of space right all three of these rad experiments will help give scientists a greater understanding of fundamental biological processes and provide important clues as to how microgravity might also affect the human body our next principal investigator dr. Barry pile of Montana State University in Bozeman is studying the effects of microgravity on a common species of water borne bacteria our experiment is based on some earlier observations with bacteria in microgravity with our film to grow faster and sooner than the ones that we've grown on earth and we are looking at the harming their growth but also the ability to cause infections we have to learn more about the growth of bacteria and microgravity largely because in space it's also been shown that the crews may become more susceptible to infections and also bacteria may become more resistant to some antibiotics which means that it may be more difficult to treat infections and space our experiment and towns putting the bacteria and a suspension of water and some small chambers in our flight hardware and then on about the eighth bound flight the crew will inject these into some culture mediator which is an another chamber in the hardware now incubate them for 24 hours at body temperature at which time they will end the experiment and put them back into storage in a canister that case of a refrigeration temperature until the shuttle lands this experiment is actually funded by NASA and we're using European Space Agency equipment because they have some sort of equipment that we need to use and also they have an incubation system labelled will be flying on this particular shuttle mission it's exciting to work on a space flight experiment there's a lot of details to be completed and to make sure that everything works properly if we only get one chance to do this and so we had to make sure that everything goes right and actually having students and others working in the laboratory and getting them excited about space flight and space science is really interesting for me to the results of dr. piles experiment will give us a broader insight into how bacteria that may affect humans respond to the microgravity environment the remaining two fundamental biology experiments on sts-107 involved plants dr. Karl Haas Einstein of the University of Louisiana Lafayette is testing the gravity sensing mechanism in flax seeds well the basics of the experiment is to hopefully figure out the true gravity sensing mechanism in plants and more specifically enrolled there are a lot of different models out there that all attempt to explain our plan since and respond to gravity and one of these theories is based on the displacement of particle so-called status within sensitive self satisfied they are called and what we try to accomplish with this experiment is to take right gravity by going in orbit and substitute a directional force by so-called high gradient magnetic fields and when we can hopefully succeed in displacing these middle class because of their magnetic properties and induce curvature at the same time you would have probably one of the strongest pieces of evidence to support this saddle it pays the gravity citizen model the experiment is important because we hope to understand and be able to answer the basic question and biology how plans perceive and respond to gravity so it can go in different directions you can understand the great deal about the so-called signal transduction chain that controls plant growth in general but it also has an applied side where we can hopefully determine ways to allow plans to become oriented in microgravity or in reduced levels of gravity so when gravity is not sufficient as in space light we can substitute this or replace it by this high gradient magnetic field and this would allow at least initially to determine the process of the germination sequence and that's an accomplishment that will hopefully help future plans to grow plants and microgravity and dr. fred sack at the ohio state university is conducting an experiment on how gravity sensitive myself develop in microgravity dr. Sachs first version of this experiment was flown on an earlier shuttle mission st s 87 where the mus responded to space flight in a completely unexpected way we're looking at a Moss cell that grows away from gravity and we're also trying to understand how these cells sense that gravity and furthermore trying to see the forces that act within these Moss cells that helps gravity shape cells themselves so it's one thing to shape an entire tree through the wood and through the shoots going up but what about all those individual cells that make up those trees and so we're looking at both the response of these law cells to gravity to figure out how they sense graveling what they do in the absence of gravity in space and also to get an idea of the mechanical forces that are within those cells to control the distribution of heavy organelles quite frankly press PS 87 we were just wondering what would happen it was almost as if is it going to be is it going to be randomly oriented in spacers are going to be some other pattern much to our surprise when we open the locker and the dishes we found that the loss crew in spirals so the older cultures actually grew so the tips of the filaments were circling in a spiral moreover they were growing in a clockwise spiral the fact that it grows in clockwise spiral says that in space the growth is non-random and this is a unique finding for most of space flight experiments because in other plant systems the roots or the shoots would grow randomly so the fact that we were uncovering a non-random growth pattern in the absence of gravity is really quite novel and it suggests that there are some underlying and doggedness forces that are present and acting in the dark but normally gravity just overrides them and we don't see them I think that learning about how cells work and the role the gravity plays in that could have spin-offs because that's how science advances people uncover some unusual phenomenon through a specialized system and then they learn something that makes them look at other systems differently and that can lead to discoveries you can have impacts down the road so fundamental biology is intimately tied with spin-offs but sometimes it's hard to see how and you just have to see will follow the the questions to see where it leads the results of both of these plant experiments will expand our fundamental knowledge of how plants sense gravity and also the basic mechanisms of cells themselves so now you have an overview of the fundamental biology experiments which are flying on sts107 the principal investigators and their teams of researchers will be studying the results of these experiments long after the shuttle is landed and the findings that they gain from these experiments will lead to more questions more experiments and more findings and ultimately this will lead to a greater understanding of the human body and the world we live in which is pretty much what NASA's mission is all about frankly the thing I find most exciting about this experiment is how humbling it is to do an experiment on the shuttle to just watch an experiment that you've prepared and it worked industrious leone and if this occupies one small peaceable a big dick Locher and then to watch this massive take off breathtaking and while we're very excited about the work we're doing we think it's but full of questions it all gets put into a kind of perspective when you see a machine that's carrying it and it gets a new seriousness and it gets part of a larger awesome hole to see that shuttle take off in life [Music] you [Music] you