3 Things Microbes in Space Can Teach Us About Our Health on Earth
We all know the typical astronaut accessories—the EVA suit, the oxygen tanks, the radio assembly. But there's an invisible part of each space mission that's often overlooked: the trillions of microorganisms that hitch a ride.
Observing responses of pathogens in space could help scientists figure out how to outsmart them when they cause trouble on Earth.
Dr. Sarah Wallace is a NASA microbiologist who aims to keep microbes from causing problems for U.S. astronauts aboard the International Space Station. According to Wallace, research on microorganisms in space has more than cosmic importance. It can also reveal things about our health here on Earth:
1) Avoiding disease isn't all about maintaining a sterile environment.
NASA has a great track record of keeping the crew healthy on space missions. But surprisingly, it's not from having kept the space flight environment as sterile as possible.
Wallace says, "We [monitor] the environment but unless we find something that's medically significant, or [in] super high numbers, we're not going to do anything."
Not only is it impossible for astronauts to live in completely sterile quarters—crew members, after all, are microbe-shedding machines—but it may not even be desirable, given what we now know about the human microbiome. Scientists have found that the entire community of microorganisms (bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses) living in and on us likely have an active role in keeping us healthy. This means that down on the ground we need to let go of the germophobe idea that eradicating all microbes is always better for our health.
2) Disease-causing microbes change their behavior under different conditions.
Remember the recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreak linked to romaine lettuce? We're still grappling with a lot of pathogen problems here on Earth. One reason is that scientists are still learning which strategies these disease-causing microorganisms are capable of employing under different conditions.
Space missions are associated with a major shift in gut microbiome composition—as shown in NASA's twin study.
Wallace says experiments with Salmonella Typhimurium showed that the pathogen became more virulent in space. Yet curiously, the opposite seemed to happen to Staphylococcus aureus under space-flight-like conditions—it became more benign.
"The way these organisms have evolved, certain triggers [in the space flight environment] might be dictating how they're responding," Wallace says.
Observing these responses could help scientists figure out how to outsmart the pathogen when it causes trouble on Earth. "It's giving us some great insights into how we could target them differently in the future," she explains.
3) Major shifts in the gut microbiome could affect health in specific ways.
Scientists still have a lot to learn about which changes in an adult's gut microbiome actually cause a change in health status. In fact, microbiome-focused therapeutics companies are in hot pursuit of these connections.
Space missions are associated with a major shift in gut microbiome composition—as shown in NASA's twin study, which followed astronaut Scott Kelly during a year aboard the ISS while his identical twin brother Mark (a retired astronaut) stayed on the ground. Scott experienced simultaneous changes in telomere length and bone formation; were these related to the gut microbial differences?
Wallace says a soon-to-be-published study of nine additional astronauts could help answer this question. The research may reveal how closely gut microbiome shifts track health outcomes, and the reversibility of the changes.
She emphasizes the science from her lab isn't meant to help only the small minority of humans who will ever go to space: "That's always our goal—that our research is helping people on Earth."
After his grandmother’s dementia diagnosis, one man invented a snack to keep her healthy and hydrated.
On a visit to his grandmother’s nursing home in 2016, college student Lewis Hornby made a shocking discovery: Dehydration is a common (and dangerous) problem among seniors—especially those that are diagnosed with dementia.
Hornby’s grandmother, Pat, had always had difficulty keeping up her water intake as she got older, a common issue with seniors. As we age, our body composition changes, and we naturally hold less water than younger adults or children, so it’s easier to become dehydrated quickly if those fluids aren’t replenished. What’s more, our thirst signals diminish naturally as we age as well—meaning our body is not as good as it once was in letting us know that we need to rehydrate. This often creates a perfect storm that commonly leads to dehydration. In Pat’s case, her dehydration was so severe she nearly died.
When Lewis Hornby visited his grandmother at her nursing home afterward, he learned that dehydration especially affects people with dementia, as they often don’t feel thirst cues at all, or may not recognize how to use cups correctly. But while dementia patients often don’t remember to drink water, it seemed to Hornby that they had less problem remembering to eat, particularly candy.
Where people with dementia often forget to drink water, they're more likely to pick up a colorful snack, Hornby found. alzheimers.org.uk
Hornby wanted to create a solution for elderly people who struggled keeping their fluid intake up. He spent the next eighteen months researching and designing a solution and securing funding for his project. In 2019, Hornby won a sizable grant from the Alzheimer’s Society, a UK-based care and research charity for people with dementia and their caregivers. Together, through the charity’s Accelerator Program, they created a bite-sized, sugar-free, edible jelly drop that looked and tasted like candy. The candy, called Jelly Drops, contained 95% water and electrolytes—important minerals that are often lost during dehydration. The final product launched in 2020—and was an immediate success. The drops were able to provide extra hydration to the elderly, as well as help keep dementia patients safe, since dehydration commonly leads to confusion, hospitalization, and sometimes even death.
Not only did Jelly Drops quickly become a favorite snack among dementia patients in the UK, but they were able to provide an additional boost of hydration to hospital workers during the pandemic. In NHS coronavirus hospital wards, patients infected with the virus were regularly given Jelly Drops to keep their fluid levels normal—and staff members snacked on them as well, since long shifts and personal protective equipment (PPE) they were required to wear often left them feeling parched.
In April 2022, Jelly Drops launched in the United States. The company continues to donate 1% of its profits to help fund Alzheimer’s research.
Last week, researchers at the University of Oxford announced that they have received funding to create a brand new way of preventing ovarian cancer: A vaccine. The vaccine, known as OvarianVax, will teach the immune system to recognize and destroy mutated cells—one of the earliest indicators of ovarian cancer.
Understanding Ovarian Cancer
Despite advancements in medical research and treatment protocols over the last few decades, ovarian cancer still poses a significant threat to women’s health. In the United States alone, more than 12,0000 women die of ovarian cancer each year, and only about half of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer survive five or more years past diagnosis. Unlike cervical cancer, there is no routine screening for ovarian cancer, so it often goes undetected until it has reached advanced stages. Additionally, the primary symptoms of ovarian cancer—frequent urination, bloating, loss of appetite, and abdominal pain—can often be mistaken for other non-cancerous conditions, delaying treatment.
An American woman has roughly a one percent chance of developing ovarian cancer throughout her lifetime. However, these odds increase significantly if she has inherited mutations in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Women who carry these mutations face a 46% lifetime risk for ovarian and breast cancers.
An Unlikely Solution
To address this escalating health concern, the organization Cancer Research UK has invested £600,000 over the next three years in research aimed at creating a vaccine, which would destroy cancerous cells before they have a chance to develop any further.
Researchers at the University of Oxford are at the forefront of this initiative. With funding from Cancer Research UK, scientists will use tissue samples from the ovaries and fallopian tubes of patients currently battling ovarian cancer. Using these samples, University of Oxford scientists will create a vaccine to recognize certain proteins on the surface of ovarian cancer cells known as tumor-associated antigens. The vaccine will then train that person’s immune system to recognize the cancer markers and destroy them.
The next step
Once developed, the vaccine will first be tested in patients with the disease, to see if their ovarian tumors will shrink or disappear. Then, the vaccine will be tested in women with the BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations as well as women in the general population without genetic mutations, to see whether the vaccine can prevent the cancer altogether.
While the vaccine still has “a long way to go,” according to Professor Ahmed Ahmed, Director of Oxford University’s ovarian cancer cell laboratory, he is “optimistic” about the results.
“We need better strategies to prevent ovarian cancer,” said Ahmed in a press release from the University of Oxford. “Currently, women with BRCA1/2 mutations are offered surgery which prevents cancer but robs them of the chance to have children afterward.
Teaching the immune system to recognize the very early signs of cancer is a tough challenge. But we now have highly sophisticated tools which give us real insights into how the immune system recognizes ovarian cancer. OvarianVax could offer the solution.”