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one of the new investigations delivered

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to the international space station by

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the recent dragon cargo ship is designed

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to improve our understanding of the risk

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of infections that long-duration space

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travelers face and it uses roundworms to

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do the work

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recently my colleague brandy dean spoke

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with dr cheryl nickerson a professor of

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life sciences with the biodesign

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institute at the arizona state

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university who is the principal

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investigator of the experiment known as

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cheryl why don't we start with what we

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know about how being in space affects an

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astronaut's immune system does it make

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it easier for them to get sick

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uh it might what we do know is that

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without question being in space and in

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microgravity definitely impacts the

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crew's immune system it blunts

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several aspects of their immune function

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so their immune systems don't work as

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well as they normally do on the ground

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we're still trying to learn more of the

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clinical details as to exactly why it

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happens but it's a fact that it does

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happen and you know that's a concern

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because even here on earth when our

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immune system doesn't work so well we're

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susceptible to a lot of different kinds

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of diseases most certainly including

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infectious diseases so

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we are we are interested in in

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understanding how space flight impacts

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the crew's ability to uh to acquire

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infectious diseases in flight

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and i understand that meanwhile um being

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in space can sometimes make the the

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diseases the microbes i guess um more

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virulent is that right as well

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well we have shown that for one pathogen

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and we have shown that for the major

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bacterial foodborne pathogen

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in the united states salmonella

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and uh that is the only pathogen for

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which an increased what we call

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virulence or disease-causing ability has

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actually been demonstrated in flight

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however we've profiled a number of other

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pathogens in flight and i can tell you

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that some of their properties change in

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a manner which suggests that they might

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be more problematic to the crew

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interesting and i guess that's what your

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study micro five looks at right

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yes so microfiber actually uh leveraged

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off of my lab's previous space flight

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research which was done on the shuttle

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uh wherein we studied the effect of

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space flight or microgravity on

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microbial pathogens and the infectious

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disease process and what's been very

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exciting to us is we've been able to use

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the microgravity platform to

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unveil or reveal new ways that pathogens

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like salmonella are actually causing

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disease in our own bodies and and we are

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able to uh use the microgravity platform

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to get this information because

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sometimes when we study these processes

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on earth

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the force of gravity can mask what the

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pathogen is doing when it infects us and

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what our body is doing and it responds

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to it so one of the really cool things

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to us in addition to having the

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opportunity to keep the crew healthy in

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flight our work is actually translating

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back down here on earth uh with our goal

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of developing new strategies to help

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keep us healthy and outpace infectious

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disease well tell us a little bit about

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how this experiment actually works in

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space

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sure i'd be happy to um so first of all

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the crew in space will set up the

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cameras so they can do imaging of our

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experiment but what they're going to do

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is they're going to activate the

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bacteria to grow salmonella to grow once

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it's grown uh for a certain period of

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time they will then infect the nematodes

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the host with that bacterium and then a

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portion of that experiment will be put

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under the video cameras for imaging

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we'll get that data in real time and

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then other portions of the experiment

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for gene expression and microscopy will

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be fixed uh in chemicals or frozen at

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different points at later points in time

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uh and then those samples will be

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analyzed when they get back and so i

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would really like to just quickly

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mention that it really does take a

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village to do this experiment it's been

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five years in the making we have

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phenomenal collaborators at every level

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at nasa nasa ames most certainly the

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johnson space center kennedy space

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center the university of chicago and oh

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my goodness

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uh orion's quest who who we have high

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school students they're helping us with

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some of our data and analyze it but

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especially to terry verts who has done

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such a phenomenal job as our amazing

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crew member who's done this work for us

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on orbit we've followed him we've been

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so excited i there's no one who could

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have done it better and without him we

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wouldn't have the work to analyze so

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my shout out and thank you to terry i'm

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going to tweet him when i get out of

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this but he's done a spectacular job so

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it's been a lot of work but a lot of fun

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you mentioned i think that you were

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going to be looking at countermeasures

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as well for sick astronauts can you tell

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us a little bit more about that

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uh sure i can it i want to

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kind of uh preface my comments with

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saying

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this is not necessarily um

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a direct countermeasure that would be

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used immediately

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but it could certainly lead us towards

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one so our previous work had had shown

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two things number one salmonella became

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a better pathogen in flight and on a

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follow-up experiment we reasoned we

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could come up with a way to turn off

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that increased disease-causing potential

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in flight which we were able to do and

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we were able to do that with the

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nutritional counter measure which

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contained

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several

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ions or metals like you'd see on the

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back of your vitamin bottle one of them

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was phosphate and we thought that

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phosphate actually might be one of the

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key reasons that we could turn off that

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increased disease-causing potential and

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flight

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so in this experiment we're actually uh

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in one of our samples when we infect the

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nematodes with salmonella we will have a

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phosphate ions in there

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and we will look to see if those

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phosphate ions can prevent the nematode

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from getting sick in the first place if

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it can then we've understood something

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very important about how

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uh salmonella causes disease in flight

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for the crew and that could potentially

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be something that could be added to

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their food as a way if salmonella

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actually actually accidentally got in

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their food it missed being detected

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to keep them safe and it could be

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of direct interest for how to keep food

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safe down here because we hear about

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salmonella recalls all the time you know

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in foods so maybe if salmonella got into

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the food but you had the right level of

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ions or phosphates in that processed

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food you might not have to worry about

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it so these are just examples of how we

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can hopefully help the crew and us be

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healthier on the ground this came up on

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the latest spacex i think so when when

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do you think you'll start getting some

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of the results back to the ground we are

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so there are three parts of the

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experiment some of the first part of the

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experiment we're already starting to get

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back so the first part of the experiment

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is is real-time profiling of the actual

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infection process from beginning to end

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and the first video started coming down

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uh the minute the very second almost the

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infection started okay and we're

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profiling that throughout the course of

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14 days we're getting a lot of real-time

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data coming down and we of course have

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to pair that compare that to our

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identical ground controls so we're

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already getting that part of the

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experiment down uh the other two parts

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of the experiment uh have to do with the

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fact that the astronauts have to process

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they have to freeze or fix the samples

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for us and those analyses can only be

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done back here in our labs at asu

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so

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one of those is to look at

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um

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the language that the pathogen and the

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host are using when they're infecting

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each other uh but well when the pathogen

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is infecting the host because um

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they talk to each other and i kind of

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view the infection process as a high

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risk poker game right you get infected

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and your body has a response the

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pathogen comes back and counters that

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and you keep countering one another and

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if you have a functional and you know

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healthy immune system you usually win

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but you don't always win all the time

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and so we want to understand that that

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language between the two of them at a

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molecular level and an immune response

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level so those kinds of studies will be

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done on the ground back in my lab and

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then we're also going to look inside the

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worm with microscopes

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to find out where those pathogens are

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getting inside the worm in flight and

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how they differ with where they get when

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we do the experiment identically on the

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ground so we want to put together all of

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this information to better understand at

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a mechanistic level why we would see the

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difference that we hope we'll see in

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flight with the infection profile

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because that would allow us to then take

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that information and and and go towards

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uh some translational approaches

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well it all sounds very interesting we

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can't wait to hear how it goes in space

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and eventually see the results here on

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the ground thanks so much again for

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joining us cheryl nickerson is the

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professor of life sciences at the