The Case of the Missing T-Cells

We talk a lot about the hardware that’s going to get us to Mars, but the most important things about human spaceflight is, well, humans! There’s a lot of research going into the impact space travel has on the body. Just think back to Scott Kelly’s year in space.

We’re going to have to jump over quite a bit of physiological hurdles when traveling to deep space. There’s living in reduced gravity environment, dealing with radiation, nutrient deficiencies, all sorts of challenges.

There’s also the immune system. My next guest found something rather interesting about astronauts. When they came back from space after spending multiple months in space, they were getting sick. Not like a cold or anything, but viruses that should have been kept in check by their T-cells.

Dr. Krishna Komanduri, is a researcher at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami and he looking into what was causing the flare ups of dormant viruses in astronauts.

Original post can be found here.