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a major area of science on the

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international space station is studying

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how the space environment impacts the

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human body so we can better prepare for

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longer future deep space missions the

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launch of scott kelly and mikhail

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konienko less than three weeks from now

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on the first year-long mission to this

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station expands that research by

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studying crew members in space for a

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longer period of time

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but it does something else too taking

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advantage of the fact that kelly has an

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identical twin former astronaut mark

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kelly

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joining me this morning to discuss the

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twins study is dr craig kundra he is the

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deputy chief scientist nasa's human

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research program craig tell me how this

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idea to study twins came about well

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thanks very much for having me this

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morning

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um

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it began in november of 2012 when scott

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kelly and mikhail kornienko were named

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to the one year mission when scott kelly

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was meeting with

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scientists at nasa to discuss the

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science that would be done on the one

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year mission he asked the question if

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any of it would have to do with his twin

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brother mark retired astronaut

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our initial reaction was no uh we had

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just heard about this announcement and

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there were no twin studies in the queue

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and normally

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if we were to select a new set of

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experiments we would have probably

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wanted to start about a year earlier

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than that

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the second thought was no it's just two

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individuals and one twin pair

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and that's not our you know we usually

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want more subjects for statistical

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significance

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but then the third thought was hold it

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this is a chance in a lifetime we

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haven't really had this opportunity

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before and we don't see foresee that

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happening again anytime soon so let's

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seize the opportunity and make the best

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use of it and see what kind of

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experiments we can do

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on these two twins so how did you select

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the experiment so we put out a research

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announcement to the scientific community

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in the us

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and solicited ideas we had specific

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categories in mind and we got about 40

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proposals in response and we selected 10

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to span the gamut of things that we were

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interested in give me a sense then of

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what you're looking at i understand it's

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broken down into about four categories

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right there are four broad categories um

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so first we have the psychological

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aspect of space flight because we're

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very interested in understanding both

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how the human body and human mind

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respond to space flight so the first

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part is a study called cognition that

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will look at

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scott and mark during the

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not just the one year mission but like

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all the other experiments pre-flight and

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post-flight as well the second area is

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physiology

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uh we're looking at for example how the

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fluids shift in the body in

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weightlessness uh that could be a major

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contributor to the vision problems that

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we're seeing a rise in some astronauts a

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third area is looking at the microbiome

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these are the bacteria that live in our

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gut and we are outnumbered 10 to 1 on a

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cell count basis by bacteria in our gut

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and so we're looking at how

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that changes in scott who's got a

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special diet for a year in our

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relatively clean environment and how

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that compares to mark the fourth area is

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really brand new for nasa it's built on

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the the shoulders of the human genome

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project and the work that has resulted

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from that and that's the molecular level

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where we're looking at how genes are

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being turned on and off uh how that's

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resulting in changes in rna in the cells

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and changes in proteins and metabolites

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all resulting from the changes in the

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genes now all of those you could do on

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scott in space

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what what's the advantage of comparing

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it to whatever you find in mark on earth

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well the great thing is you know the

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classic question is you know how much of

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our

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nurture

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discussion so in this case we've got two

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genetically identical individuals

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and

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we can monitor what kind of changes

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occur in mark in an ordinary lifestyle

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and compare those to the changes that we

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see in scott in flight with essentially

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the same gene set and so when we see

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significant differences in scott that we

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don't see in mark then we're on to we

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have a good clue that there may be

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something to follow up on and then the

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environment is

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is responsible for change yeah it could

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be the weightlessness it could be

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radiation it could be

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the isolated confined nature uh there

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are several aspects of space flight

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which pose a challenge how are you going

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to gather data

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from the two subjects well on the

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molecular front

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we're collecting samples from saliva

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cheek

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urine feces and blood

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on the

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side the physiology

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we're using some instrumentation which

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we can only use on the ground like mris

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but we're also using instrumentation

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that we can use on the ground and in

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flight like ultrasound and then the

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cognition test that i mentioned earlier

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that's entirely on a laptop so that that

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works in both places so it's it's fairly

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straightforward and not not too

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complicated to uh to

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get the data to study it's another

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that's easy for you

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well and that was a key part of putting

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the twin study together is

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uh we didn't design any new equipment or

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anything for the study we capitalized on

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investigations already ongoing and then

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for this new molecular

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realm obtaining cheek and saliva and

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feces and blood is relatively easy

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the the experiments themselves are are

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related in that the experimenters are

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working cooperatively right that's right

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this is an unusual arrangement we

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selected 10 separate investigators and

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all working together we forged this into

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one large meta study if you will so all

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10 investigators are sharing data with

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one another

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sharing in the analysis they'll write

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papers together and one of the

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investigators did a similar type of

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study

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with one subject just doing the

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molecular part following that subject

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for 14 months so we have a good template

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on which to build but this is very

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unusual i'm not aware of another study

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like this even on on the ground where

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you've got so much molecular work as

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well as the physiology the psychology

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and the microbiome

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with one pair of subjects here i think

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that's not a statistically significant

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sample right but this is still worth

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doing absolutely

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yeah the normal twin study would involve

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tens hundreds maybe even thousands of

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twins

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well we don't have that many in the

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astronaut core we just have these two

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just in one set and so what we're

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expecting is that with the genetic

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identity underlying them they were in a

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good position to see some subtle changes

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that we wouldn't be able to see in two

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individuals who weren't

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identical twins

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now

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those will be clues it's very unlikely

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we'll have a definitive result from this

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study but we'll have clues that we can

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follow up then with normal research

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studies that would involve the normal

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number of astronauts so this is really a

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a discovery opportunity not likely to

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generate final conclusions and like most

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things with data gathering pre and post

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flight so

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it's you've got a year's worth of data

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gathering in front of you that's right

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that's right so we've we've already uh

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done several sessions of pre-flight data

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collection

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and now we're entering the flight phase

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then after flight there will be

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kind of an intense uh six months worth

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of data collection and then most of the

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twin study

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data and sample collections will stop

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six months after uh the mission a few go

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on because they were part of studies

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already in the uh portfolio and they'll

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go on a bit longer but the twin study

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for the whole will will wrap up in the

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fall of 2016 in terms of data and sample

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collection be interesting to see what

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you learned thanks very much for uh for

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telling us about it thanks for having me

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craig kundratt is the deputy chief