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the international space station is used

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as a research laboratory on orbit and

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also as a means to encourage students in

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their studies of science technology

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engineering and math recently the center

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for the advancement of science and space

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the nonprofit that manages the iss

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national laboratory partnered with a

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number of companies to develop a

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competition for students from the 7th to

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12th grades to design an experiment to

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fly on the station the results of that

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competition called genes in space is on

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space station right now recently my

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colleague gary jordan spoke with the

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program manager scott copeland of boeing

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here in houston and started by asking

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where the idea for this experiment came

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from

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well boeing is celebrating their 100

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year anniversary of being in business so

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we certainly want to encourage young men

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and women to continue their education

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with science technology engineering and

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math while we were participating in the

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mass challenge with cases last year i

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ran across a company that had a little

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dna replicator called the mini pcr

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so i found it interesting because the

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particular device is small it's very

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compact and uses very little resources

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so i thought it'd be a perfect

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application to put this on board the

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space station

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so as part of the discussions we ended

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up buying two of those units for

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evaluation purposes

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and then

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we had some follow-up discussions with

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the founders of their company

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and the company itself is very focused

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on stem education trying to put

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biotechnology

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devices and hardware into the school

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systems so that young women and men you

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know high school and junior high have

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access to this it's

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most schools even in anywhere in the us

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don't have access to that type of

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technology so because of that tell me

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about some of the response from the

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students and how that competition was

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judged well the response from both the

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students and the teachers has actually

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just been outstanding we've conducted

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workshops across the country where we

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did the simulations for example the last

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one we did was at the hudson alpha

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institute of technology in huntsville

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alabama we brought students and teachers

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into the classroom for a six to eight

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hour session we did a simulation for a

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contamination experiment

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we'd pre-staged food containers on the

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international space station for the

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ultimate journey to mars

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and we had a call up from the ground

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that warned us that one of the

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containers might have been contaminated

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and so we did the simulation let the

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students take dna samples and determine

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which container had been contaminated

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so it really got them engaged with

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hands-on workshop environments such as

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that

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excellent and your winner was a 17 year

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old from bedford new york

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so what are the goals of the research

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that she proposed

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well we really had two goals on this

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first we wanted to see if a

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what's called pcr polymerase chain

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reaction could be done in space so first

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thing we wanted to do was check out the

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experiment itself make sure the device

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would work in zero gravity

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and her experiment was focused on

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we know that the immune system from

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astronauts is compromised it's

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suppressed when but trying to we don't

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really know what's causing all of that

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at this point so she is looking at

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changes in the genetic

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makeup it changes the dna and see if she

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can determine a link between that and

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immune system suppression so how will

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genes in space be executed then uh in

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space

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well we've completed uh

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three sample runs to date so we're

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through and we're just waiting to bring

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our samples back we we extracted the dna

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from zebrafish using the laboratories at

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yale university the samples were

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pre-processed with the reagents and then

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packaged and frozen those were then

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shipped to the cape where they were

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launched to the station

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two weeks ago the first samples were

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taken out the mini pcr was set up in the

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node on the workbench area

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we checked it out the temperature

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profiles looked very good

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then we loaded the first sample which

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was anna sophia's sample

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it was processed and then returned back

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to cold storage and then we had two

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reference samples that were also

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processed so hopefully everything went

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well and we're looking forward to

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getting the samples back

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they'll be returned at the end of the

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month and

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we'll see what the results were

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so the results are coming how do you

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think the results of her experiment

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might be applied to support future space

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missions

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well i think this will open the door for

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us if we can look to see which genes

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have been turned on or off through this

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particular process called methylation if

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we can determine which ones have been

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turned on off that will open up the door

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for discoveries of

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or at least

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looking into any other type of diseases

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to see how the effect of microgravity

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might affect it

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well it seems like it's a very popular

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experiment that's going on station do

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you think you'll have a lot of

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contestants for next next year's

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competition uh we're very excited about

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next year's competition so uh april 25th

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marked national dna day and as part of

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that we had the end of submissions for

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the genes in space 2 competition so

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we've already received over 400

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applicants uh it really reached across

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the u.s we had 90 schools participating

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in over 900 students so we're quite

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excited there'll be a lot of late nights

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between now and mid the month to

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determine down to five finalists and

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those five finalists then will

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be tutored by harvard and mit phd either

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students or phds themselves scientists

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and researchers for about a six week

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period at the end of that conclusion

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then we will down select they'll come to

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san diego and for a down select to a

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single winner and they'll do oral

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presentations and we have a very uh

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distinguished panel of judges that will

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participate in that and the winner will

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be announced once that occurs then new

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england biolabs is one of our partners

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along with many pcr math for america and

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cases um they're going to host them for

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a one week session in new england so

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they'll be able to live on their campus

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and work with their

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scientists and researchers to perfect

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their experiment for our next

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launch a lot on the schedule for these

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uh for the next couple months but in the

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meantime we'll be looking forward to the

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experiment uh from the results from the

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genes in space on the international

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space station right now uh scott

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copeland project manager of boeing genes