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we all know that as we age our immune

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system may not be as effective as it was

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in the past much is the same for

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astronauts so a study called t-cell

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activation and aging looked at the

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suppression of the immune system to find

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new ways of boosting our body's defenses

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lori meigs is at the payload operations

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integration center at nasa's marshall

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space flight center with more on one of

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the top discoveries on the space station

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well dating back to the apollo mission

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days it's long been known that crew

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members have less immunity to infections

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during and after space flight dr millie

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hughes-fulford has been studying t-cells

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ever since she flew on sts-40 as a

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shuttle payload specialist today we

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learn more about t-cells and what

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fulford's space station experiments have

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revealed

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your immune system is your century for

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keeping you well

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the t cell is like the general of all of

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the immune

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cells

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so you get an infection

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the t cell is delivered

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the antigen saying oh i have an

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infection

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a couple of actions happen the t cell

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then is activated

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and it tells the b cell to make

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antibodies it tells the macrophage to go

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eat up the

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the the bacteria

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and it is like the general coordinating

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the immune system if your

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t cell's not working well

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you

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can die of pneumonia very easily in

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the elderly over 65

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the top five causes of death in the

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elderly one is pneumonia and two is

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influenza and it's because the immune

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system falters

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in older people

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i study the immune system in astronauts

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and what happens to the t cell

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in space flight and why it's not

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activating

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some of the astronauts have had an

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immunosuppression

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much like older people i think the most

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famous one is on apollo 13 where we had

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one astronaut get very ill

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with a pseudomonas that normally

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wouldn't make you ill on earth

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so where are we now we've we've studied

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this now on the space station and and

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you have results i have results what

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we're finding is that there are certain

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molecules that are not being made

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properly and we're looking at how to

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regulate those molecules to turn them

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back on the other side collateral

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benefit is the fact

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that people that have rheumatoid

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arthritis people that have multiple

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sclerosis also have an autoimmune

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disease which means that their

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immune system is overacting

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so the molecule that we're looking for

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to boost the immune system in older

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people we can do a anti-mimic or an

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inhibitor to help people with

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the rheumatoid arthritis to not have all

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the pain and to decrease the

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inflammation

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so now that you have these results how

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is that turned into things we can use

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okay now that we have the results the

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next step is to devise

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the mimics and the inhibitors

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test them first in the test tube

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then go to to

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the next step in and looking in normal

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people and then the next step after that

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is to try it on people with the disease

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do you think you would have found this

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information had it not been for the

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space station and being able to test it

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there i don't think so because what

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happens is in microgravity we're seeing

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things that are not being turned on

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and so it's helping us to pinpoint

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therapeutic molecules

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that can be turned into drugs

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will there be more space studies or do

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you think you have enough um i i might

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do one or two more i i think the final

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one will be where i

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have the the t cells in flight

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and they are immunosuppressed and i add

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back my compound and they come back to

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normal then i'll be finished

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well that'll be a long lustrous career

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we don't want to let her retire just yet

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we love millie now taking a look live at

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the payload operations integration

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center we have edwin smith he is at the

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helm there the payload operations

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director he's actually doing some

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on-the-job training to get his

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certification

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as our newest payload operations

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director and the folks there olomisca is

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the operations controller

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and uh they're all working on all of

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those experiments and getting ready for

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the new crew that you've been talking

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about this morning crawford that'll do

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it for us here at the payload operations