Love at First Flight
NASA astronaut and Expedition 61 Flight Engineer Jessica Meir installs the Bone Densitometer in an EXPRESS (EXpedite the PRocessing of Experiments to Space Station) rack located inside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module. The Bone Densitometer enables the imaging of rodent bones for the Rodent Research-19 experiment that is investigating two proteins that may prevent muscle and bone loss in space.
Media Credit: NASA
Amongst the supplies and equipment delivered to the ISSInternational Space Station National Lab on SpaceX’s 19th commercial resupply services mission last year, a few extremely muscular “mighty mice” were part of a rodent research project from The Jackson Laboratory that is using rodent models to study musculoskeletal disease.
Husband and wife Se-Jin Lee and Emily Germain-Lee lead the research team, and they have been eager for decades to see their science experiment fly to space. This week, a NASA article highlights their journey to space. The couple hopes to use space to investigate the potential benefits of targeting myostatin and activin signaling pathways to prevent disuse-related skeletal-muscle and bone loss.
Such research is particularly important for conditions on Earth that involve muscle wasting due to immobility or reduced activity, such as in patients recovering from hip fracture surgery, intensive care patients, and the elderly. Learn more about this research in our recent blog post or by exploring some of the below media coverage.