Using digital technologies to improve muscle health in Astronauts

这个项目的目的是使用数字技术来发展对航天中肌肉萎缩的机理理解。如果任其发展，在航天飞行中肌肉质量和表现的丧失将对宇航员的健康和关键任务的成功构成关键风险。随着针对不同群体的商业乘客和长期火星之旅的雄心勃勃的计划，迫切需要阐明肌肉萎缩的根本原因，并揭示个体差异的作用。在航天环境之外，肌肉萎缩对地球上的患者来说也是一个关键问题，他们可能会因为不同的原因而经历萎缩，如缺乏活动、衰老(Sarcopenia)和肌肉营养不良。因此，对这种萎缩反应的机理理解方面的进展可能有助于为地球上的患者和太空中的宇航员开发对策。该项目使用的技术将包括生物信息学，用于解释研究中的生物“组学”数据，包括类似于太空飞行的人类地面研究，以及使用啮齿动物和蠕虫等模式生物进行的太空飞行研究。此外，还将开发先进的计算机视觉解决方案，以实现对实验的功能分析，包括用于研究基因突变蠕虫肌肉力量的ISS实验。最终，功能措施将与“组学”数据的分析相结合，以建立“组学”变化与生理变化之间的因果关系。此外，该项目还将包括进一步发展生物医学航天能力的其他活动，包括开发生物医学立方体卫星的管理软件，以及调查在人类航天中使用生物数据的隐私、伦理和法律问题。

The aim of this project is to use digital techniques to develop the mechanistic understanding of muscle atrophy in spaceflight. If left unabated, loss of muscle mass and performance in spaceflight poses a key risk to astronaut health and success in mission critical tasks. With ambitious plans for heterogenous populations of commercial passengers and long-duration voyages to Mars, there is an urgency to elucidate the underlying causes of muscle atrophy and uncover the role of individual differences. Outside of the spaceflight context, muscle atrophy is also a key issue for patients on Earth, who may experience atrophy due to different causes such as inactivity, ageing (Sarcopenia), and muscular dystrophy. Therefore, advancements in the mechanistic understanding of this atrophic response may inform the development of countermeasures for both patients on Earth and astronauts in space.Techniques used in this project will include bioinformatics for interpreting biological "omics" data from studies, including human ground-based studies that are analogous of spaceflight and spaceflight studies using model organisms, such as rodents and worms. Additionally, advanced computer vision solutions will be developed to enable functional analyses of experiments, including an ISS experiment for investigating muscle strength in genetic mutant worms. Ultimately, functional measures will be combined with analysis of "omics" data, to establish causal relationships between the "omics" changes, and the physiological changes.Additionally, this project will include other activities for furthering the development of biomedical spaceflight capabilities, including the development of the governing software for a biomedical CubeSat, and investigations into the privacy, ethical and legal issues of biological data usage in human spaceflight.