Dr. Michael Schmidt of Sovaris Aerospace and Dr. Christopher Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine took the stage at the American College of Nutrition annual congress in Seattle, using a Fireside Chat to discuss the NASA Twins Study and, more broadly, the importance of multi-scale omics in human space exploration. The discussion inevitably led to an exchange surrounding the need for the deployment of precision (personalized) medicine for humans in space. Such precision medicine solutions will inevitably include, but not be limited to, molecular-based countermeasures that derive from a thorough understanding of the genome and its associated molecular phenotype. This includes a detailed working understanding of molecular pathways and molecular networks.
Dr. Mason and Dr. Schmidt are actively involved in the analysis of the large data set that was derived from doing multi-scale omics, during the one-year period in space. This work is leading to the publication of summaries that can be used by flight surgeons and astronauts to better understand the molecular changes taking place in space. These works will also be useful to further explore the development of countermeasures for space exploration, as our understanding of the findings grows.