We send worms in space

We send worms in space.

A payload of hundreds of Caenorhabditis elegans will visit the International Space Station as part of the "molecular muscle experiment" of the British Space Agency, announced the agency Tuesday. This is the first experience in the UK on the ISS and aims to better understand how spaceflight contributes to muscle loss.

Three British universities – Exeter, Nottingham and Lancaster – are collaborating on this project with the UK Space Agency and the European Space Agency and hope that learning more about muscle loss in space can help to better understand muscle diseases on Earth. .

"The molecular muscle experience will provide insights that will help our understanding of muscle aging and help improve life on Earth," said Libby Jackson, the space program's manned space microgravity program at the Space Agency. British.

C elegans was the first multicellular organism to have mapped the entirety of its genome and it has been used for decades as a model organism because it is cheap. Experimentation is easy and the gestation period is short. It is also helpful that you can basically see each cell of the animal's transparent body when you look at it under the microscope. They are a powerful search tool.

"They are very small, fast to develop, cheap and easy to maintain, making them interesting to work with," said Tim Etheridge, Lecturer at Exeter University.

One of the biggest challenges in the space is the maintenance of muscle mass, astronauts losing up to 40% of their muscles after only six months in space. The muscles begin to deteriorate if they are not used and they depend on the effects of gravity. In microgravity, biological processes generally take place. Studies have already established a link between extended space flights and age-related problems – and that is why worms can not only help fight age-related diseases, but also allow us one day to counter the effects of extended space flights.

C. elegans is undoubtedly a much more experienced space species than ours, with hundreds of worms visiting the space since the early 2000s. Notably, they have regularly contributed to our growing knowledge of physiology in the world. space. In 2008, a team of NASA scientists showed that spaceflight can have a positive impact on aging and, in 2012, a Japanese research group showed that some genes associated with aging C. elegans when the worms were in space.

I hope that creatures are happy to contribute to our understanding of the human body. As Shakespeare once wrote, "even a worm will turn". This is not the kind of horror plot of B-movie that I want to see come to life.

(OK, so to speak)

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