POWRE: Pulmonary Nitric Oxide and Adaptation to High-Altitude Hypoxia

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Nitric oxide is a gas produced by the body to perform many functions, including ensuring the diffusion of oxygen from the lungs to the blood. This project will develop and validate a technique to measure the amount of nitric oxide produced in the lungs, known to be a major site of synthesis. Variation in the production of nitric oxide is thought to have consequences for people's ability to inhabit extreme environments where oxygen is limiting, such as those at high altitudes. Understanding how the millions of high-altitude natives of the Andean, Tibetan and Ethiopian Plateaus have adapted to ensure oxygen delivery under conditions of severe low oxygen will improve knowledge of the processes of human adaptation to extreme environments and to environmental change. This POWRE project will provide Beall the opportunity for training and technique development that she cannot obtain otherwise. This developmental and testing phase will be undertaken in a controlled, laboratory environment in order to establish the technique before undertaking field research in remote, high-altitude sites.