Researchers and scientists say new discoveries and drug creation could be beneficial to future astronauts on deep space missions

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old



An international group of researchers has come up with a new plan to help astronauts survive high-level radiation in space – and even get them to Mars without the deadly exposure expected during three years of space travel.

Elon Musk: we must colonise Mars to preserve our species in a third world war Read more

“From the first day you show up, the known hazard of flying in space is radiation,” American astronaut Commander Scott Kelly told the Guardian.

Researchers with the artificial intelligence company Insilico Medicine Inc who teamed up with international scientists say discoveries in gene therapy and drug creation could be beneficial to future astronauts on deep space missions.

It is estimated that a return trip from Mars would expose astronauts to radiation doses of 600 mSv – a large proportion of the lifetime cap Nasa sets for space travellers of 800-1200 mSv.

According to the plan’s co-author, Franco Cortese of the Biogerontology Research Foundation, an astronaut experiences 40-100 times the radiation earthbound humans do.

Kelly – who has spent a total of 520 days in space, including several missions on the International Space Station – has a lifetime radiation dose so far of 239.6 mSv.

An x-ray at the dentist will give you about 8 mSv.

Nasa is currently exploring a three-year mission to the red planet, which at an average of 140 million miles away from Earth is much further away than the space station, which orbits at a height of about 200 miles.



Assuming that those astronauts will have had training on the ISS, it’s safe to assume their radiation exposure, including that gained on Earth, will be awfully near the lifetime cap by the time they return.

Nasa identified radiation as one of its top research priorities last year, and said in 2015: “Though far off, a medication that would counteract some or all of the health effects of radiation exposure would make it much easier to plan for a safe journey to Mars and back.”

Scientists in this field of study are proposing to build upon knowledge already gained in the study of human aging. Part of the plan is to make some human cells radioresistant.

Scientists want astronauts to have personalized drugs tailor-made for their own bodies. To do this, they will have to use artificial intelligence to pinpoint which cells are more resistant than others, and fortify them using gene therapy.

Professor David Sinclair of UNSW School of Medical Sciences and Harvard Medical School Boston worked on a study last year that could lead to a drug development that improves the ability of DNA to repair itself and could also reverse aging.

He said: “We are working with Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to find new genes that protect DNA and introducing new genes such as Dsup” – a protein that can boost cells’ DNA repair capacity – “and other protective genes from other species into mice”. They are testing the effects on protection and aging.

Sinclair says some species are known to have resistance to radiation. “Tardigrades and radiodurans bacteria are the most commonly studied,” he said. There are DNA protection genes in both tardigrades – microscopic animals nicknamed “water bears” – and radiodurans that also protect human cells from radiation. Sinclair said his team is working with these and four other species. “They might boost DNA repair or prevent DNA damage – we don’t know for sure yet,” he said.

In 2016, a team of researchers discovered that human cells with tardigrade genes added were able to suppress x-ray damage by about 40%.

Sinclair’s team has begun human trials to see if a DNA precursor can mitigate DNA damage from radiation exposure, similar to their previous study on mice.

A team of physicists at the University of New Hampshire recently published results of a deep space radiation study, which measured four years of radiation dose levels tracked by Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has circled the moon since 2009, and compared their findings to previous measurements.

The results showed a 30% increase in radiation over the last four years, leading scientists to conclude future astronauts will be exposed to higher levels of radiation. According to UNH scientists, the increase of radiation is attributable to a weakening of the sun’s magnetic field during its solar cycle.

Right now, the top methods of protecting astronauts from radiation involve improving spacecraft and the spacesuit of the astronaut.



“No one has ever offered up nutritional or pharmaceutical modalities to protect against radiation for me specifically,” said Kelly.

The plan by Cortese and co would build upon the study of human aging, by making some cells radio-resistant, like some types of bacteria, using gene therapy.



The scientists want astronauts to have personalized drugs tailor-made for their own bodies.

Cortese thinks drug manufacturers will take part in this. “There is not a whole lot of deals in pharma centered around keeping astronauts healthy, to my knowledge, but synergistic work between space agency-funded research and pharma at large has occurred before,” he said.

My best photograph: Mars rover Curiosity's shot of the hill she'll never climb Read more

Co-author and Insilico CEO Alex Zhavoronkov, PhD, approached Sylvain Costes of Nasa’s GeneLab Project at a recent conference to discuss the group project and counter measures that could be taken to make astronauts more resilient.

Costes could not comment on Nasa’s future involvement with gene therapy, but said, “We got involved in this because of our expertise in radiation biology and space biology.”

A grant from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research funded the project.

Researchers say the long-term benefit of the paper is to establish a foundation upon which future radio resistance work can be built.

More project specifics will be announced at a life sciences conference in Basel, Switzerland in September.