Shuttle Astronauts Conduct Experiments on Rats : Space: Research is intended to further knowledge of anemia and other blood disorders.
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — Working in a state-of-the-art space clinic, the Columbia astronauts drew blood samples and injected radioactive tracers into lab rats Saturday in pioneering research that could shed light on better ways to treat anemia and other blood disorders.
While the National Aeronautics and Space Administration routinely trumpets the possible benefits of its inherently costly space research, scientists appeared especially excited by the potential payoff from Columbia’s current mission.
“Whatever we develop here in space will have immediate applications to our animals and to our fellow human beings back on the Earth,†said Martin Fettman, the first veterinarian to fly in space.
Since liftoff Monday, Fettman and his six crew mates have been plowing through a $175-million suite of integrated experiments to learn more about how weightlessness influences human physiology and how to counteract its harmful effects.
The first five days of the scheduled 14-day mission were devoted to studying human responses to weightlessness. But Saturday, the crew shifted gears and began working with some of the 48 lab rats to find out what causes red blood cell production to decrease in space.
Oxygen-carrying red blood cells typically live for 90 to 120 days in humans before they are removed by the spleen and replaced by fresh cells produced by bone marrow. Anemia occurs when red blood cell levels fall below a certain point.
Results from the first Spacelab Life Sciences shuttle mission two years ago indicated that new red blood cells in humans and rats in space were somehow being killed before they could mature and enter the bloodstream from the marrow.
From Saturday’s rat research, scientists hope to learn what process is responsible for the red blood cell loss and to find out whether injections of a hormone that regulates red blood cell production can alleviate the problem.
Earlier in the mission, the astronauts were injected with radioactive iron-59 and iodine-125 to provide telltale blood samples that should provide insights into the mechanisms governing blood volume and red blood cell production.
The same isotopes were injected into the tail veins of five rats on Saturday.
Ten rats will be injected on Tuesday with a hormone that stimulates red blood cell production to see if that halts the red blood cell loss.
Ground controllers had Fettman check on yet another rat that didn’t seem to be eating or drinking. He said that the animal appeared to be in good shape but had a bad water dispenser, so he popped two packs of gelled water into the cage.
The big job for the shuttle crew comes next weekend, when the astronauts decapitate and dissect five or six rats--a space first--and preserve the tissue for post-flight analysis.
