ALBERT

Description: Space Biology current Rodent Research hardware and capabilities as of October 2017. These include the Life Sciences Glovebox, Rapid Freeze, sample cartridges and simulated carcass freezing, mass measurement device, habitat configuration with enrichment, and the non-Rodent capabilities they feature.

Description: No abstract available

Description: No abstract available

Description: For over 100 years, neurologists have used eye movements to identify neural impairment, disease, or injury. Prior to the age of modern imaging, qualitative assessment of eye movements was a critical, routine component of diagnosis and remains today a routine law-enforcement tool for detecting impaired driving due to drugs or alcohol. We will describe the application of a simple 5-minute oculomotor tracking task coupled with a broad range of quantitative analyses of high-resolution oculomotor measurements for the sensitive detection of sub-clinical neural impairment and for the potential differentiation of various causes. Specifically, we will show that there are distinct patterns of impairment across our set of oculometric parameters observed with brain trauma, sleep and circadian disruption, and alcohol consumption. Such differences could form the basis of a self-administered medical monitoring or diagnostic support tool.

Description: Behavioral characteristics of D.melanogaster are strongly influenced by intrinsic and extrinsic factors, allowing scientists to assess how changes in physiology or environment manifest into behavior. Conversely, assessing changes in behavior of specimens provides valuable information about how the physiology of that organism responds to external changes. In this project, we developed a computer program to automate behavioral analyses of larvae and adult D. melanogaster aboard the International Space Station using on-board video recordings. Utilizing freely available libraries for Python, we set parameters to compute the number of animals, amount of locomotion as distance or movement, and the change in the perimeter of the larvae's outer shape to quantify behaviors such as curling or peristaltic full body wall contractions. Results show that our program is an efficient tool for analysis of larvae and adult locomotive behavior, thus providing scientists with a low-cost, efficient, and reliable method of quantifying behavioral data.

Description: Tardigrades are microscopic invertebrates that are uniquely radio tolerant among animals, and while the mechanisms of radiotolerance in some species is becoming understood, such mechanisms in Hypsibius dujardini, the most radio tolerant fully aquatic tardigrade, are unknown. We asked 1) Is H. dujardini resistant to direct or indirect DNA damage due to ionizing radiation? and 2) Is this resistance through initial DNA protection or efficient repair once damage has occurred? We confirmed H. dujardinis extraordinary radiotolerance but encountered challenges in performing molecular techniques, thus identifying a need for standardization of tardigrade experimental protocols.

Description: No abstract available

Description: One potentially important bone quality characteristic is the response of bone to cyclic (repetitive) mechanical loading. In small animals, such as in rats and mice, cyclic loading experiments are particularly challenging to perform in a precise manner due to the small size of the bones and difficult-to-eliminate machine compliance. Addressing this issue, we developed a precise method for ex vivo cyclic compressive loading of isolated mouse vertebral bodies. The method has three key characteristics: 3D-printed support jigs for machining plano-parallel surfaces of the tiny vertebrae; pivotable loading platens to ensure uniform contact and loading of specimen surfaces; and specimen-specific micro-CT-based finite element analysis to measure stiffness to prescribe force levels that produce the same specified level of strain for all test specimens. To demonstrate utility, we measured fatigue life for three groups (n = 5-6 per group) of L5 vertebrae of C57BL/6J male mice, comparing our new method against two methods commonly used in the literature. We found reduced scatter of the mechanical behavior for this new method compared to the literature methods. In particular, for a controlled level of strain, the standard deviation of the measured fatigue life was up to 5-fold lower for the new method (F-ratio = 4.9; p 〈 0.01). The improved precision for this new method for biomechanical testing of small-animal vertebrae may help elucidate aspects of bone quality.

Description: NASA in its plans to send humans to distant destination such as Mars faces the health and physiological performance problems caused by microgravity and space radiation. While most of the environmental conditions in spacecraft during flight can be made to mimic terrestrial conditions, microgravity cannot yet be managed. This space environmental factor has a major impact on the bodys biological system forcing alterations, in order to adapt to this new environment. Most space flight and ground-based studies suggest that prolonged exposure to microgravity leads to significant skeletal muscle atrophy, bone loss, and results in suppression of total metabolism. Due to microgravity, unloaded crewmembers lose up to 1.5% of their skeletal mass and 1.8% of bone strength each month during ISS missions. Remarkably many animals, including human-size bears, which are largely inactive during the 6 to 8 months of hibernation, show no loss in bone mass and much less muscle atrophy than would be anticipated over such a prolonged period of physical inactivity. This suggests that while in a suppressed metabolic state animals have unique natural mechanisms to prevent muscle disuse and bone atrophy. The molecular mechanisms underlying these important adaptations are not yet known. Radiation exposure is the second health hazard encountered during spaceflight that can cause radiation sickness, cancer or death. This study provides new evidence that metabolic activity levels play a critical role in radioprotection. Metabolic suppression, as an adaptive response of cells to minimize damage caused by radiation, enables cells to reduce cellular dysfunction and damage, and prolong their survival despite persistent oxidative stress. Thus mechanistic understanding of metabolism offers a means for sustaining astronauts in long-duration missions. The ultimate goals of this study are to demonstrate that induced metabolic suppression in animals and humans will profoundly reduce their sensitivity to the damaging effects of radiation and microgravity as well as other kinds of stresses caused by spaceflight. The beneficial effects of suppressed metabolism induced by different factors such as temperature, nutrition, and medications, will not only mitigate the most detrimental hazards of spaceflight but also radically reduce mission life support requirements and spaceflight logistics.

Description: NASA Ames Research Centers WetLab-2 system brings new capabilities to the ISS for researchers. The system can lyse cells and extract RNA on-orbit from different sample types ranging from microbial cultures to animal tissues. Our purification method has the advantage of using non-toxic chemicals and does not require alcohols or other organics. The purified RNA can then either be stabilized for return to Earth or can be used to conduct on-orbit quantitative Reverse Transcriptase PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis without the need for sample return. qRT-PCR reactions are performed by dispensing the RNA into reaction tubes that contain all lyophilized reagents needed to perform the analysis. The system uses a Cepheid SmartCycler that allows for multiplexing of assays, this can be used to normalize for RNA concentration and integrity and to study multiple genes of interest in each tube. There are a total of 16 independent PCR modules each capable of detecting up to four fluorescent channels. The WetLab- 2 system can downlink data from the ISS to the ground after a completed run and uplink new thermal cycling programs. The ability to purify and stabilize RNA on-orbit can eliminate the confounding effects of reentry stresses and shock acting on live cells and organisms or the concern of RNA degradation of some samples. It also has the benefit of minimizing the needed downmass. Conducting qRT-PCR and generating results on-orbit is also an important step towards utilizing the ISS as a National Laboratory facility. Specifically, the ability to get on-orbit data will provide investigators with the opportunity to adjust experimental parameters in real time without the need for sample return and re-flight. On orbit gene expression analysis can also provide benchmarking prior to sample return. The system can also be used for analysis of air, surface, water, and clinical samples to monitor environmental pathogens and crew health. The validation flight of the WetLab-2 system using E. coli bacteria and mouse liver is scheduled to launch on SpaceX-8 this spring. Pending operations, the preliminary results from the validation flight will be presented. To support the needs of future researchers, we are adapting our system to purify RNA from two additional sample types: fibrous tissue such as muscle and mammalian adherent cells grown on alginate beads. Progress of this work will also be presented. The WetLab-2 Project is supported by the Research Integration Office in the ISS Program.