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the team here in mission control is

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still assessing exactly how the problems

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with the cooling loop will be affecting

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the schedule for the station's upcoming

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events including uh the launch planned

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for next week of the cygnus uh vehicle

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but once the cygnus vehicle does go

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it'll be carrying to space several new

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experiments for the space station and we

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have with us today uh via phone dr david

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klaus to tell us about one of those

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experiments he's the principal

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investigator for the npl vaccine 21

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experiment and he's with the university

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of colorado dr klaus thanks so much for

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joining us oh my pleasure thanks for

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inviting me

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well why don't you tell us a little bit

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about what this experiment is

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okay first of all the the payload name

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is a little misleading it was manifested

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into this we were looking at vaccine

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development uh in recent flights uh this

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one rather than changing the the name

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we're slightly doing a different

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experiment it's looking at antibiotic

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effectiveness in space

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so not so much in developing a vaccine

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against a viral infection but and

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looking at antibiotics that would be

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used to treat bacterial infections okay

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and i think we have some some past um

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research that indicates that that they

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do work a little differently in space

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than they do here on the on the ground

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right there's a number of different

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phenomena that have been shown to occur

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starting with bacteria tend to grow

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better in general in space they they

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begin to grow a little sooner in the lag

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phase period and they reach higher final

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population densities

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other earlier studies have also shown

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that their bacteria are able to grow in

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the presence of what would normally be

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an inhibitory level of an antibiotic in

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a microgravity environment

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i'm sorry can you repeat that last part

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i didn't quite understand the last

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sentence there well normally you know

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antibiotics are used to kill the

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bacteria to treat bacterial infections

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but in a microgravity environment for a

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variety of reasons that are not yet

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fully understood

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it takes higher concentrations of the

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antibiotic in order to inhibit the

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growth or to kill the bacteria in space

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okay that's obviously something that

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that we would be interested in learning

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more about for for a number of reasons

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yes correct first of all uh well first

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and foremost i guess is for the

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protection of space travelers on long

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duration flights we want to have a

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better understanding of what's going on

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there

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um but also for terrestrial applications

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uh there's a number of people in the u.s

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i think the numbers around 100 000

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americans each year

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die from bacterial resistant infections

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and this is you know a huge financial

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burden not to mention the loss of life

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and the

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the study that we're looking at is is

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trying to understand a little better of

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how the bacteria acquire these uh

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drug-resistant mechanisms in the first

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place

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by watching observing and characterizing

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how they respond to the space flight

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environment where they seem to do it

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better

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and so how do you how do you study that

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in space do you i'm assuming obviously

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we don't infect the crew with something

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and then give them the vaccine so how do

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you how do you do that great this is all

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done via our microgravity test tube

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devices that allow the crew to mix these

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cells into the antibiotic concentrations

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and we basically have it set up so that

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the bacteria are going to be introduced

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to varying concentrations from

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sub-inhibitory levels to normally

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inhibitory to

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up to several times what would normally

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kill the bacteria so the indications are

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first of all whether they grow or not in

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these presence of the higher levels of

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drug and secondly when we bring them

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back we'll be doing genetic assays to

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look to see which genes might have been

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turned on or expressed differently into

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that environment

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that sounds fascinating how did how did

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y'all come up with the idea to

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to look into this

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well again this this is built on uh

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literature studies back to those studies

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the studies in the literature that date

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back to the 1980s it seems to be you

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know a lot of hit and miss one-off

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earlier experiments that have been done

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some really interesting findings and

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then for different reasons not followed

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up on so we've been uh we've been

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conducting research with bacteria for

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roughly 20 years now and under various

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space missions and different

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applications and this is just the next

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extension where we're really excited to

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see this particular one fly i am

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particularly excited to see this one

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coming to fruition i'm really anxious to

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see what the results show

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how long before you would have results

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is it is there a lag time to study the

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study what you get down the data

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before you were able to say anything

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conclusive yeah in our case you know

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we're going up on orbital one with this

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then we're coming back on a couple of

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different spacex flights so part of the

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payload is coming back on on the i

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believe the spacex three and then the

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next one spacex four if i recall

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correctly so once we get the samples

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back they'll be preserved in flight

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basically the crew will go in and

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activate the experiments and then

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terminate them for a timeline and then

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they're sitting there and just in stasis

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for the rest of the period waiting for

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the return flight once we get them back

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we'll be able to begin doing the data

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analysis

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do you have um any previous um

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conclusions have you been able to

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to draw on on why

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the space atmosphere affects vaccines

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like it does

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well the the interesting thing here is

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is whether or not it's unique to that

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environment like a localized effect and

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what happens in microgravity you know

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the bacteria normally are in a

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suspension in a fluid and they're slowly

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falling due to gravity and on earth when

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you take gravity away they tend to stay

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in the same place in in the microgravity

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uh environment

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and that changes the the chemical makeup

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of what's uh in their surrounding

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environment

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it's it's you know the technical term is

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reduced mass transport essentially the

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the it's often referred to as the cells

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end up living in their dirty bath water

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uh because molecules aren't moving away

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as quickly the cells not falling away

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from the excreted products and stuff is

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not getting into the cell as quickly

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from the outside wow that's that's

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really interesting

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so it must be nice to have the space

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station around to perform this sort of

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experiment on oh absolutely i wish we

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could be up there doing this ourselves

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it'd be even it'd be even better

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but it's going to be great to have the

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data come back

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and we're really anxious to see you know

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if first of all if the cells are able to

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grow as we expect they will in these

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levels of the drug and then secondly

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when we start looking at the genes that

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are responsible for how they're able to

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do that those are those are the two

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primary results that we're looking for

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for this first round of experiments

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well that's that's great we really look

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forward to hearing what you find out and