Workshop Recommendations
Workshop Presentations
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Genomic Studies of Renal Cells in Space Microbes, Hitchhikers, and Humans: A Crew Health Perspective |
Technologies
Preface by Workshop
Co-Chair,
Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg
(Nobel
laureate, medicine, 1976; developer
of the hepatitus B vaccine)
The nation has made a strong commitment to the establishment of a peopled space station, the International Space Station (ISS), in collaboration with other countries. The US scientific community has a significant interest in assuring the best possible use of this unique facility to expand our knowledge of biological processes and the origins of life.
The ISS will create a wide variety of new opportunities for study in the biological sciences. The low gravity environment and other characteristics of the ISS represent a unique set of challenges for living organisms. The effects that these environmental factors have on the biology and evolution of organisms can give important insights into basic biological processes as they evolved on Earth.
Life may have originated extra-terrestrially, or have been transported from this planet to another celestial body. The ISS provides a previously unavailable opportunity to investigate the potential for interplanetary transfer of living organisms, and the ability of terrestrial organisms to tolerate the space environment over time.
There are national and international commitments to continue the human exploration of space. The increased understanding of basic space biology obtained from research on board the ISS could greatly facilitate the maintenance of astronaut health during long missions.
A major goal of the recent workshop, and of the astrobiology endeavor, is to introduce scientists to the exciting possibilities for research on the ISS, and to provide intellectual and other incentives to enter this field. The increasing emphasis on the potential for biological research on board the ISS is enabling the development of versatile and robust flight hardware. The opportunity to perform well-controlled and interpretable experiments on the ISS should provide the catalyst necessary to transform space biology from a field in its infancy to a well-established branch of the biological sciences.