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one of the studies the crew has been

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working on over the past few weeks takes

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a look at the microbes that live inside

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and outside our bodies commonly referred

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to as microbiome a lengthy study on the

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space station continues to gather data

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on the types of organisms that are

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associated directly with what's on the

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crewmember skin and in their GI tracts

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and how that may affect their immune

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system and what they're learning could

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have an impact on long-duration missions

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as well on earth Lori Meggs is at the

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payload operations and integration

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center at NASA's Marshall Space Flight

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Center with more Lori well what

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researchers are really looking for in

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the microbiome experiment are the

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changes that occur in those

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microorganisms that grow in and on crew

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members and how it may affect their

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health and whether or not spaceflight

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makes them more susceptible to disease I

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spoke with Alexander Voorhees he's a

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genetics researcher at the j craig

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Venter Institute is known for pioneering

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genomics research to learn more a lot of

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research has been done lately looking at

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the human microbiome and all the

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microbes that are associated with the

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human body and how when they're in a

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good positive state they can really help

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human health they can bolster our immune

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system and they can help us digest food

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in a way that gives us just the amount

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that we need and not access on the other

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hand when it's perturbed and when it's

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disturbed like when you take antibiotics

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suddenly you don't have any of those

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organisms helping you out and so those

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are usually associated with disease

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states and when a diverse community of

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microbes is usually associated with

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being a healthy community and when you

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lose microbes due to whatever sort of

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disease state what ends up happening is

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you lose diversity and so what we're

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really looking interested in looking at

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is these astronauts that are up in orbit

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they're in a stressed state their immune

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system is compromised and it's likely

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that there's changes in the diversity of

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their microbial communities and that may

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have direct impacts on their health so

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how do you study that so in order to do

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that we start by using a marker gene

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called the 16s ribosomal RNA it's a

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small subunit of the ride

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the ribosome is the protein that's

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responsible for making proteins in the

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human body every organism on the planet

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has one and so we can make a tree of

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life that shows the phylogenetic

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relationships of organisms so we can

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study this gene in very very complex

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detail over a large quantities of

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quantity of samples and what we expect

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is that being under stressful conditions

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that compromise the astronauts immune

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system will change the microbial

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communities both in their guts and on

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their skin while they're in orbit and

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that once they return we'll see a shift

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back towards the resting state of the

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community that we observed before they

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left and what we observe with people on

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the planet is that when they undergo

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periods of stress or periods of disease

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the communities associated with them

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shifts either they get more organisms or

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though or the number of organisms

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contracts and they have less and so what

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we want to know is this is a high-stress

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situation when we send somebody they

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leave the planet and they go up into

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orbit what happens to those microbial

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communities with these people who are

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highly trained they're trained to deal

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with stress and they're in great

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physical shape and what sorts of changes

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will we notice in them and how can we

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apply that both two people going on

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longer missions to Mars where it's going

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to become very important to monitor a

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microbial community over that time and

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also what can we do to help bolster

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their immune system can we have them eat

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certain foods can we give them microbes

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in order to bolster their immune system

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and keep them in better health

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throughout the mission so that they can

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focus on doing the things that an

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astronaut needs to do and not the fact

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that they feel sick so the unique thing

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about this experiment number one is that

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it's really a lengthy investigation it

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really is it's a five-year project in

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total six of our crew members have

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already completed sampling for more in

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the process of sampling and what is more

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than just the fact that it's a long time

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period we sample it ten different time

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points both pre-flight in flight and

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post-flight we also sample at a number

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of different body sites so we'll be

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looking at six different body sites and

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then also correlating that two levels of

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stress and two immune function as

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measured by cortisol

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the blood I'm sorry cortisol and saliva

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or cytokines in the blood so what kind

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of samples are we talking about that we

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take from the crew so the first sample

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that we have them take is just an air

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swamp they take the swab and they wipe

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back and forth in the air and it's

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really a negative control to make sure

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that we're not contaminating it with

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organisms from Earth along the way

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through our sampling process and

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sequencing process we then take a look

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at the forearms the forehead the nasal

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cavity the tongue and stool samples to

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get an idea of what's going on in the GI

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tract over this time you said you've had

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six complete this already what have you

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learned so far so far what we're finding

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and we only have preliminary results so

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far we're expecting to have more soon

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but what we're finding so far is that we

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are noticing a shift a measurable shift

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in the microbial communities while

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they're in orbit and it will become very

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powerful when we can average the results

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of multiple crew members to really pick

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out is this chemistry specific to an

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individual crew member or is this a

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trend that all people experience when

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they go up into space so why should I

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care here on earth well because being

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healthy in space is very similar to

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being healthy on earth the things that

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we discover will directly relate to

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every human and it may relate to being

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in a stressful situation or it may

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inform our knowledge about what happens

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to the average human in their microbiome