Study on twins of the effects of extended space flights

This Thursday, April 11, a study of the effects of long-term space travel was released in the Science Journal. What makes this study special is that the two subjects of the study are twins, Scot Kelly and Mark Kelly. Scott was sent on a mission to the International Space Station from March 2015 to March 2016, while Mark stayed on Earth the whole time. Scientists at NASA had been analyzing data since then, and have come up with very interesting results.

First of all, scientists noticed that gene expression in Scott changed while he was in space. This does not mean that his genes actually changed, but rather that different genes were activated during the flight. More concretely, three main changes were observed. First, his gut microbiome changed dramatically during the flight, but returned to normal after coming back. Second, the shape of his eye changed during the flight, which is thought to occur due to the lack of gravity. But most importantly, his telomeres, which are protective structures attached to the chromosomes, lengthened during the flight. This is important because the length of the telomeres is an important age marker, they tend to become shorter the older you are, and this shortening increases the risk of several diseases associated with age.

I think this is a very interesting study, even if the sample is only two people. Very few people go to space, so it is hard to do a large-scale study on the possible effects of spaceflight. Using twins instead to minimize errors seems like a fantastic idea to me. Also, understanding why telomeres lengthen during spaceflight might allow us to stop and maybe revert some of the effects of old age, which sounds very exciting and futuristic to me. What do you think?

Comentarios

  1. missvalerie14 de abril de 2019 a las 19:24

    Thank you Martin for your comment. That article also caught my attention because it makes it easier to determine the effects of living in space when comparing the identical genomes of twins.

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