Oxford Sends Human Cells to Space to Investigate Aging Process

Reuters

Decades of space travel have shown how microgravity impacts the human body, including bone density loss and immune system weakening.

Last month, cells were sent to the International Space Station for research. Lead researcher, Ghada Alsaleh, believes the results could provide vital insights into the aging process.

“Astronauts suffer from muscle atrophy, problems with their joints, with their bones and also with their immune system. When we noticed this, we found that this actually at some point is similar to a different age-related disease. And this lead us to ask the question if space might provide us with an accelerated ageing model? and if it is the case that means we can actually be able to study ageing very faster, because this is happened in a very short time while ageing on Earth needed years”

Her research aims to benefit astronauts and the elderly population on Earth.

"My interest most likely is really the people who live on Earth, or the majority, because we know that we have more elder population and most of them suffer from these different age-related disease. So I really focus to help people on Earth, but at the same time it would definitely help astronauts not to age faster and maybe to treat all these disorders that they have during their missions in the International Space Station, specifically now we are going to think later on to go to Mars and Moon and investigate this space more."

She monitors the experiments from Earth. With 8.2 billion people on Earth, this research is increasingly vital for both astronauts and the global population.

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