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the international space station is being

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used by scientists from all over the

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world to conduct research

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that can support future space flight but

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also to improve life for people on earth

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one such experiment now underway is

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using mice as stand-ins for humans to

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assess how well a new compound works to

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prevent skeletal muscle wasting and

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weakness

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that's a condition that's faced by

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astronauts during a long duration stay

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in weightlessness

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of course it's also a condition that's

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experienced by many people on earth

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recently my colleague amiko carter spoke

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with dr rosamond smith she's a research

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fellow at eli lillian company and is the

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principal investigator of the rodent

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research 3 mission

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amiko asked her to explain why the lack

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of gravity in space leads to weakened

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muscles for the station crew members

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well um

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basically our muscles are very

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responsive to the amount of resistance

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or load that encounter so um for example

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when you

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lift weights and add more resistance our

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muscles get bigger right but when one

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has less load or less resistance as you

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as happens in the conditions of

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microgravity on our muscles our muscles

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actually decrease in size or undergo

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muscle atrophy or muscle wasting

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so we know it happens and

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and therefore we do have exercise

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equipment aboard the international space

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station um so astronauts are exercising

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but tell me a little more about this

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compound that you are investigating to

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help um as a as a possible

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countermeasure

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well actually so uh

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the compound we're developing is uh we

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hope to be able to prevent muscle

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wasting obviously here at lilly we have

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been very interested in

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developing this compound for

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muscle wasting conditions and uh

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diseases that have muscle wasting for

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patients on earth but obviously it does

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have applications too for astronauts in

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space so um yes we're hoping uh that uh

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this compound will have activity to be

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able to prevent uh muscle wasting

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occurring uh not only in people with

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diseases that have muscle wasting but

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also in the context of microgravity in

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space

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so you're studying mice in

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weightlessness can you tell me what

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makes mice a good analog for for

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studying you know muscle wasting in

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humans

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well actually uh it's very interesting

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species so actually um

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mice are a very good surrogate and

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end up being a very good species to look

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at muscle wasting obviously they're

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smaller and more convenient and easier

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to do lots of different measurements and

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so uh

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it makes sense and we anticipate we'll

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learn a lot about what may happen in

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people by studying

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in mice initially now tell me about the

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hardware that is being used for this

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investigation and what are the

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astronauts doing to help collect the

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data

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well i was just quite a complex

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experiment at last uh six weeks they

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they were there's very specialized

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hardware just to get the mice up into

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the space station they're in a

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specialized habitat in the transporter

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in the dragon

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rocket the spacex rocket dragon capsule

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that took them to the space station and

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also when they're sort of living in the

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space station they're in a special

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habitat so that provides them with food

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and water and controls the lighting and

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the temperature etc but then when we're

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actually performing our experiment we

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also have other hardware measures body

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composition also the grip strength which

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is a measure of muscle functioning mice

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there's a brand new way in which this

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has not been done before in mice on the

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space station and to do some of those

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measures we have

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anesthetized mice

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to be able to uh complement measure

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their body composition so that's another

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specialized piece of hardware that was

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designed to be able to allow

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us to

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uh undergo anesthesia so um this

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experiment involves a lot of hands-on

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work by the astronauts

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i was very fortunate just a few days ago

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when uh we were at our four-week time

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point in our experiment to go and watch

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the live feed from the space station and

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see tim peake doing the thumb work on

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our experiment um and tim cook or the

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other astronaut was doing measures for

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the body composition so it takes quite a

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lot of astronaut time there

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it's very complex measures and

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afar so good we're already getting some

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exciting data

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so it'll be interesting hearing about

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the results of this investigation once

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it's over and can you tell me though

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after studying the results how do you

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hope that it will apply to astronauts

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but also people living here on earth

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well as you can imagine if this if our

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experiment is successful and we are able

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to fence the muscle wasting the er in

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ice in the infant's conditions uh it

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will be extra evidence that our compound

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can uh

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prevent that uh prevent muscle wasting

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and of course people include those data

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and into our drug discovery efforts as

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we're working to develop uh new drugs

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and novel

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beta drugs to help patients who have

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muscle wasting diseases on earth these

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are diseases such as muscular dystrophy

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als certain types of cancers that

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moment there's really no uh no treatment

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for

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these

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muscle wasting diseases

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we uh wish you best of luck on this