NEXT FRONTIER: SPACE VIRUSES
Richard Simpson, a health and human performance professor at the University of Houston, is studying how astronauts’ immune systems react to long periods of time in space. His NASAfunded research is specifically looking at viruses that stay in your body for life, like herpes and the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes mononucleosis.
Q: What health risks exist for astronauts?
A: For whatever reason, when astronauts are in space, some viruses reactivate. There’s concern that some of these viruses can lead to problems in the astronauts, cause health problems and also jeopardize the success of the mission. Part of the work I do is understanding what immune changes take place that could potentially allow these viruses to reactivate, and then of course can we do anything about it to prevent that from happening.
Q: Why will this research change the future?
A: It benefits any plans for further exploration of the solar system. If you want to send a human being into orbit, you have to understand what physiological adaptations take place in response to environment in such journeys, and of course what are the potential health ramifications of that and whether we can potentially do anything.
The research I’m doing is helping us understand what the effects of microgravity and space flight are on normal body functions and normal physiological systems. We really need to understand that before we can explore further into space.
Q: What are your latest findings?
A: The analysis is still ongoing. I don’t have too much to share. Many of the crew members have had reactivation viruses, but we’ve known that. What we’ve been thinking is that there’s a certain type of cell called the natural killer cell, which is very important for fighting cancers and for controlling viruses. What we’ve found in the astronauts is that the natural killer cells are going down. Their ability to kill virus cells and certain cancer cells is impaired when they’re in space. That’s what we’ve found so far. After returning, it recovers back to baseline, but the rate of recovery varies from astronaut to astronaut.