![\"Astronauts](\"https:\/\/images.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/11144802\/SEI_208284007.jpg\")
<\/div>Astronauts Robert L. Curbeam Jr. (left) and Christer Fuglesang on the International Space Station<\/p>\n
NASA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
More light could be shed on how space flight affects astronauts\u2019 health<\/a> after the creation of the first \u201cspace-omics\u201d biobank \u2013 a collection of thousands of blood and tissue samples, plus medical information, taken over multiple space missions.<\/p>\n These include missions to the International Space Station, as well as the first all-civilian space flight, SpaceX\u2019s Inspiration4<\/a>, which took four non-government-trained astronauts into space for three days in 2021.<\/p>\n Called the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA), the resource contains detailed medical data, such as on DNA damage and changes in people\u2019s gene activity and immune system functioning, collectively known as biomarkers.<\/p>\n Space flight is known to pose certain health risks. For instance, astronauts lose bone density and muscle mass due to the lack of gravity, and higher levels of radiation in space<\/a> seem to cause cell and DNA damage, which have a range of impacts on the body. These effects may be why astronauts are more prone to developing heart disease<\/a> in later life\u00a0and some have experienced worsening vision<\/a> after being in space.<\/p>\n Collecting astronauts\u2019 medical data in a consistent way via the SOMA biobank will help researchers understand more about these changes and potentially develop ways to mitigate them, says Christopher Mason<\/a> at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who helped put the biobank together.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBiomarkers don\u2019t always translate into anything that\u2019s clinically meaningful, but it\u2019s a nice way to start to understand how this unique environment is impacting us,\u201d says Damian Bailey<\/a> at the University of South Wales in the UK, who wasn\u2019t involved in the work.<\/p>\n One insight from the Inspiration4 mission is that, despite the astronauts experiencing a host of biomarker changes, most measurements returned to normal within a few months of them coming back to Earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n This suggests that sending civilians into space doesn\u2019t pose more health risks than sending professional astronauts, says Mason. \u201cInstead of people training for decades to go, we could start to really open up space towards more and more people.\u201d<\/p>\n The results from Inspiration4, which was crewed by two men and two women, also suggest that the changes in gene activity returned to normal faster in the women. That may be because women\u2019s bodies have to be able to cope with a potential pregnancy<\/a>, says Mason. \u201cBeing able to tolerate large changes in physiology and fluid dynamics may be great for being able to manage pregnancy, but also manage the stress of spaceflight.\u201d<\/p>\n Timothy Etheridge<\/a> at the University of Exeter in the UK says it will be helpful for researchers around the world to have a common resource they can use. \u201cYou need to have a consistent approach to collecting samples,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n