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hi i'm kelly humphries here at the nasa

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johnson space center in the immunology

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lab with brian crushin brian's a nasa

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immunologist and he's looking at

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astronauts in space

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can you tell us what the issues are with

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space flight and the immune system

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it's a good question

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the human immune system is altered

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during space flight

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we're unsure of exactly what the nature

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of that change is though

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people have been looking at the immune

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system regarding space flight for

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decades but the vast majority of those

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have been post flight studies and

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collecting samples and looking at this

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in astronauts after flight doesn't

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necessarily tell you the status of the

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immune system during flight

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re-entry is a tremendous physio

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physiological stress on the body

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re-adaptation to gravity so we've been

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the community has been waiting for a

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research platform such as the space

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station that affords us the opportunity

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to examine this type of physiological

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question during space flight

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so

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do you know what causes this change in

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the immune system yet

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that's another good question

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uh there are multiple factors that can

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influence the immune system during space

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flight uh radiation the most sensitive

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cells to radiation in the body are the

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immune precursors in the bone marrow

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also microgravity itself may affect how

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immune cells activate and perform their

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functions

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but also physiological stress

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confinement isolation disrupted

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circadian rhythms all have the potential

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to influence the immune system so we we

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generally consider

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it being a problem of how is the immune

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system during space flight and and not

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necessarily

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in response to any of those specific

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variables okay well what kind of

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equipment do we have on board the space

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station the astronauts use to

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get the samples you need well for our

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study we collect blood

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samples from the astronauts during space

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flight and we return them to the ground

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for analysis

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much as you might go to your doctor's

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office and and give a sample that's

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collected in your doctor's office and

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it's sent to the reference lab or the

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reference lab for the space station for

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this study

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what's unique about our blood

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collections is

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most blood collections on orbit are

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frozen for

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frozen return to earth and analysis

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because we need live immune cells to

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gauge their functional capacity we need

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to collect our samples

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during docked operations of some vehicle

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and then right before hatch closure and

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undocking of that vehicle so they can

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return our samples so if it's soyuz or

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the shuttle when we had the shuttle

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we would collect our samples just before

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hatch closure they would bring the

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samples to us

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we collect them in special types of

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tubes that maintain their viability for

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48 to 72 hours and that gets us a nice

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live sample that we can analyze in the

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laboratory here at jsc can you tell us

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what you use to collect blood samples on

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orbit

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sure we we have a blood sample

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collection kit that was designed for

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this study

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i have a training unit here i can show

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you

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lot of velcro velcro is a very handy

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thing to have on orbit for first

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deploying your your kit and keeping all

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the items uh readily available in front

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of you it has most of the components you

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might expect

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needles gloves tourniquet band-aids

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also we especially collect our blood

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samples in these padded tubes to protect

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them for for landing re-entry

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we collect our samples

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in two types of tubes both

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anticoagulated to prevent the blood from

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clotting a purple top tube and a yellow

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tube which actually contains nutrients

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to keep the cells alive for 48 to 72

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hours so we can get those live cells

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back to the laboratory for analysis

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those look a lot like the tubes that

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they put my blood into when i go to the

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doctor is it harder to take blood in

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microgravity than it is on the earth

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actually we didn't know that starting

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the study but it turns out that it is

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when you collect samples blood samples

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on the ground if you picture how this

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might work in your doctor's office they

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fill the tube and the tube fills

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from the bottom to the top we cheat when

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we have gravity available to us in space

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you lose that

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ability to gauge when the tube is full

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and kind of fills the tube all at once

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and foams into the tube so what was

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happening in the early part of the study

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is we were getting samples that were not

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quite filled all the way until we

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learned what was happening we had some

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nice on orbit video collected by the

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crew members sent to us that helped us

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determine what was going on and now we

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simply time the collections to make sure

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we have a

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completely full sample so you mentioned

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that

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there are changes in the immune system

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that might not be a big problem on the

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space station close to home but would be

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a big problem if you're on your way to

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mars or something on a long duration

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flight why is that

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you've characterized it perfectly

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basically we see immune changes during

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space flight

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we see it maintaining itself for six

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months during low earth orbital flight

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but that doesn't necessarily mean crew

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members are sick it means we're seeing

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transient immune changes and we all

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experience those

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periodically on the ground

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but we during uh

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flight on the space station

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we don't really see that progress uh to

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to a very high level to clinical disease

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uh so it's an interesting phenomenon

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what we're concerned about is how the

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environment will change during an

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exploration class mission if you're in a

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smaller vehicle for three years at a

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time on your way to mars or an asteroid

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the situation is dramatically changed

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the radiation environment is elevated

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you have more limited clinical care you

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don't have a return option anymore so

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these things that were minor problems

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potentially minor medical problems on

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the space station could become much more

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serious in that environment

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specific adverse clinical events

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could include things like

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hypersensitivities

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allergic responses infectious disease

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and that type of thing

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so brian you do a lot of analysis in the

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lab of that blood that you bring down

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from the space station can you show us a

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little bit about that here on your

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computer and what you're looking at here

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on these

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in these uh readings sure basically this

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is a flow cytometer

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it has a laser we shine that on the

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cells as we pass them in front of the

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laser beam it scatters light we can also

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stain the cells with various dyes that

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allows us to separate them out into

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populations and identify them

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we do two types of assays assays that

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look at the distribution of the immune

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cells in the blood

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that's very similar to if you went to

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the physician and he drew a tube and

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ordered a complete blood count or a cbc

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that looks at at a very high level

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certain bulk populations by staining

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them with various dyes we're able to

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resolve

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many more different subsets of subsets

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of immune cells

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so when we look at the distribution of

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those in your body right now it tells us

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a little bit about any pathology you may

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be experiencing today

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second aspect of the analysis is to take

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those cells and culture them in the

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laboratory

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pulse them with various chemicals to

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stimulate them and simulate an immune

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response in the test tube then we can

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look at their functional capacity so

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once one hand we're looking at the

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distribution and their numbers on the

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other hand we're looking at their

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functional capacity or whether they're

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working well or not

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where all these little dots and boxes

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here well these are typical flow

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cytometry scatter plots basically we'll

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we'll stain the cells in a test tube

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load it onto the machine

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pass it through the machine and we can

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plot any of these parameters against

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each other each dot is a cell so we'll

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collect 10 000 cells or or so and will

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resolve various populations and then

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that's how we're able to count them so

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here we've resolved t cells and then we

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can take the t cells and separate them

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into cd4 cd positive subsets then we can

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take the cd8 positive subsets further

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separate that out into naive cells

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active cytotoxic cells or or aged immune

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cells and that's how we

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use this uh instrument to look at the

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distribution of the cells in the blood

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so brian krusian thank you very much for

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having us here in the nasa immunology

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lab uh we really appreciate you showing

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us around it's a pleasure having you

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stop by anytime great thanks a whole lot