Why space wrecks the human body

Click here for Notes and Transcript

Time Markers

00:00 – Episode Introduction00:29 – Space Takes – Musk & Trump11:21 – Space Takes – ispace20:13 – Welcome Nadia21:35 – Astroskin headband Biomoitoring22:48 – Dual Use Applications – Earth and Space25:18 – The Effects of Space on the Body28:09 – Technology and Biology29:39 – The Vaccine36:03 – Nadia’s Story and the Vaccine

Transcript – Dr. Nadia Maarouf Conversation

David Ariosto – Dr. Nadia Maarouf, it is great to see you again.

Nadia Maarouf – Pleasure is mine, David, it’s been a while, and it’s an absolute pleasure to talk to you again, and thank you so much for having me.

David Ariosto – Yeah, yeah. I think, I think it’s germane to start by telling people where we met. It may have said Utah on the map, but it looked like Mars, right? This was, in fact, this Mars Desert Research Station, which is sort of an analog Mars and habitat in the in the Utah desert. And you were the first person that that I met, first person to greet me upon entering the have. And I believe you were wearing this, like this tech infused headband used to sort of monitor the vitals of the crew. So I’d like to start there. What, what were you doing with that headband? What were you doing there in Utah, in a place that looked like Mars.

Nadia Maarouf – Well, I was the first crew member to meet you, because I was the crew medical officer, and as you remember, it was during the pandemic, and so I had to make sure to do a quick COVID test to make sure that we don’t have a compromise of the mission, somebody with COVID. I was negative, by the way, yeah, you was negative. It was a pleasure to meet you, and it was really wonderful to have you with us for a couple of days, including EVAs and other activities. So we saw what we were doing experiment wise. So the headband was part of a bio monitoring device shirt and the headband called the Astroskin, and that device is part of Canada’s efforts to contribute to autonomic healthcare monitoring, as you know when when astronauts go to Mars or the moon or any emissions beyond low Earth orbit.

You can’t rely on Earth centric healthcare systems. So you so the efforts is to create a bio monitoring, autonomic healthcare device that the crew members can can monitor themselves, or in my case, I was the principal investigator for that project where all of the crew members had, as you remember, all of us had the headbands and the shirt, and it was the longest continuous healthcare monitoring of any crew. So we wore that device continuously for both 18 days, so 15 days during the mission, and then before and after for baseline.

David Ariosto – Right, I think, I think this is sort of what I wanted to talk to you about, in the sense that, like a lot of the science that that is interesting, a lot of science that’s profitable, frankly, is that is those that have sort of these dual application, both in space and here on earth. And the sense of, you know, monitoring healthcare systems. I mean, there are gaps in this country and across the world in which access to health care is is limited. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that that that access has to be by virtue of technology. And I think maybe that’s that’s a place to go with this conversation, the sense like, where that that push into space, has terrestrial applications?

Nadia Maarouf – Oh, absolutely. So just going back to that technology. It’s, it’s the Astroskin. It’s a company that’s, it’s a Canadian company, and the aim is to use that technology to monitor astronauts traveling to longer distances away from Earth. And the aim is to make sure that when healthcare issues arise, then you can have contingencies and countermeasures quicker, rather than wait too long. And in turn, you can use that technology for, for instance, our communities up north that don’t have access to health care, and just basically provide them with with the opportunity to be monitored, and then in case there’s problems, then you have that live data for health care practitioner that can be hundreds of miles away, like we.

Were at the MDRS (Mars Desert Research Station), like the closest hospital was, if I remember correctly, about 300 miles away. And so I did actually use that, unfortunately, to ground a couple of my crew mates when their heart rate was too high, or concerns about their respiratory rates or temperatures, etc, to go on EVAs. Because if you remember, you came with us on one of those EVAs, and we are far away into the desert, we cannot risk one of the crew members fainting or having an emergency in the middle of nowhere. So that was, that was one of the tests of that technology for six crew members continuously. And, of course, because it was an experiment, I had to use it in parallel with the Gold Standard, which is just tests every single day, and then communicating it with the Mission Control.

David Ariosto – I think that also sort of betrays, like the broader, the broader aspect of what you’re working on, right? Because you know, it’s one thing to sort of be operating in remote regions on Earth, but in space. And this sort of speaks to your work of this, this vaccine that you’re working on, which is something I really want to talk about, you know, in space, micro gravity just wreaks havoc on the body, right? Everything from from bone density loss to muscle atrophy to, like, shifts of fluid within the body, you know, sort of even accelerating gaging of the heart. And so, like, I wonder if you can maybe kind of get a little bit more into the science of what happens to your body when you’re in space. And, like, start focusing there. Because, I mean, this is actually topical in the sense that we have two NASA astronauts, Sunny Williams and Bucha Wilmore, who were supposed to be in space for a week. And, you know, they’ve stayed at the station now, the ISS now for for over 250 days. So you know what’s what’s happening, what’s happening to their bodies?

Nadia Maarouf – Well, basically, every single system in the body is affected by by space travel and an exposure to microgravity, or starting by the heart deconditioning for every six months, the heart ages by about 20 years on earth. Of course, it varies person to person, and these astronauts are some of the healthiest people out there, but it does affect people in basically every single system. So with the heart, like I mentioned, it’s parallel to aging on Earth and radiation. Of course, there is higher risk of developing cancer. There’s vision issues, which is related to cardiovascular issues as well. I can, I can dive in a little bit deeper on that, like we talked about the fluid shifting in the upper extremities, because our biggest vessels, like the aorta and the vena cava, the biggest ones are up here.

David Ariosto – And so they actually start to reshape a little bit too, right?

Nadia Maarouf – Absolutely, yeah, it reshapes. And then the compliance. So they can think about blood vessels in the heart like a balloon. If there is just too much volume in there, then the compliance kind of just deteriorates with time.

David Ariosto – I know more of that elasticity. It stays that way, exactly.

Nadia Maarouf – Yeah. And of course, that fluid shifting into the upper extremities, it also goes up to the brain. There’s too much pressure in the cranium, it has nowhere to go, and so it starts putting too much pressure on the optic nerve. Vision starts to have issues. For example, lot of astronauts will experience what’s called cotton wool vision, which is like just patches in their vision or bone density goes down quite a lot, between five and 8% every month.

David Ariosto – I mean, I think this is like the bigger, bigger question, right? Because if you hear all the commentary about the nature of settlements up there and prolonged space, and you know, talking about the Artemis base camp and the International lunar research station that the Chinese and Russians are putting up there. I mean, all these are centered around having a more prolonged and sustained human presence on Earth. And so, like the technology seems to be, it seems like we’re already there, like we can do this with the with the sort of machinery, but from the biological standpoint, that’s, that’s a bigger question, seemingly.

Nadia Maarouf – And so I think in terms of the technological issues. That’s the reason why we are not in Mars right now, technological operational issues, but the biggest hurdle is the medical one. And so you cannot send astronauts to a colony in Mars.So the moon, the moon is probably more reasonable, but you cannot keep them there for long enough that they will do impactful work. Right now, the standards are, I think, one month, continuous lifetime spent on the moon for women, and 40 days for men, if you want them to still be healthy and still be ethical about these people spending time there. So. In Marc we are thinking about, you know, two years just to get there, if the planets are aligned properly, I think by the time they get there, it’s going to be problematic, unless you have contingencies to prevent those issues happening with every single system in the body.

David Ariosto – I mean, there are, like, these ideas of creating artificial gravity and sort of these, these rotating structures up there, and so that, like might mitigate it. But then you have questions about radiation exposure and all sorts of things that, you know, just seem there’s only so much testing you can do on earth when it when it comes to this stuff. But, you know, I wanted to actually talk to you about, talk about this vaccine, and so it’s sort of like this cardio protective vaccine that you’re working on, you know, correct me if I’m wrong here. But it seems like it, it, I remember last time that we talked has to do with what HSP27 which is, like the chaperone protein, right, which is sort of protects cells from stress injury. And it’s kind of like, akin to what you might find if you go into sauna or you work out, but like, how that, how you can sort of operationalize that in terms of of of looking at sort of the broader problems for astronauts when they have, you know, the shifting fluids, or the pressure on on their hearts, or maybe a weakened heart because they’re not working against that gravity, like, like they do Here on Earth, and how that might be applied, not only to to astronauts in space, but here on Earth. Because, I mean, it seems like heart disease is like the leading cause of death worldwide. I think in us, I was reading us alone, like one in every five deaths has been linked to heart disease. So this has like real applications, not just for sort of the pie in the sky, dreams of settlements and such on Mars and the Moon elsewhere, but for everyday folks here on Earth.

Nadia Maarouf – So as as you mentioned, just to give the the audience a little background about heat shock protein 27 it is chaperone protein that is protective against stress, usually, but just by chance, my my prof, discovered that it is a foot soldier of estrogen, and so that’s the reason why women usually don’t have as many heart attacks compared to men, up until the point when they reach menopause, and then that’s interesting, and then it flips, yeah. And so we isolated the heat shock protein, and then we turned it into a vaccine. And it’s not a vaccine in the traditional sense. We also discovered that heat shock protein antibodies form complex with heat shock protein. And then when it’s when the body is stressed, when we start to get older, then it kind of releases and provide that protection. And so in terms of cardiovascular disease, heat shock protein 27 does two things. It increases the expression of low density lipop, or the Yeah, low dusty lipoproteins in the liver. So basically, it takes away all the cholesterol, or the bad cholesterol, and then it metabolizes it, instead of just roaming in the circulation. And the other thing it does, it reduces inflammation, because with atherosclerosis or the hardening of the blood vessels, you need two things. You can have high cholesterol, no problem. You can have inflammation. Of course, there are problems, but then when you have the two that’s the perfect recipe for atherosclerosis and disease and eventually ischemic.

David Ariosto – So as it relates, as it relates to space, is sort of the intention is that, you know, once this kind of matures and goes through trials that you know, astronauts would essentially be given that. Seen something of this sort of ward off, especially if they’re going to be the operating space for long periods of time. And then also, you know, it seems like there’s just, there’s a lot of really interesting research in terms of pharmaceuticals that’s happening in space, in the space environment, you know. And we’re talking about, you know, cells can be cultured in sort of the three dimensional space, without the need for scaffolding, which, like potential allows us to grow like ever more complex tissues and organs and all kinds of new sort of pharmaceutical and drug makers that are just kind of developing new technologies as we look to it. So it’s almost seems like it’s a I don’t know this is more of a question, but like, is there a sort of a push and pull here in terms of its both terrestrial applications, but also potential development in some of these emerging microgravity on orbit labs.

Nadia Maarouf – Absolutely, I think with with space technologies right now, there’s a lot of money in in, you know, trying To find solutions, to find solutions for for healthcare issues in space. But if you solve that, then you’re solving a lot of issues here on Earth, you know, including heart disease. So if there was an interest in conducting these experiments in space, that will accelerate the knowledge and the data and understanding, and then you can go back and apply it here on Earth. And so I think it goes hand in hand. And so my hope is that there will be a research mission where I can go and do these experiments and then provide the data to support it, and then move it faster, because…

David Ariosto – So you’re going, you’re going to space, essentially.

Nadia Maarouf – I hope so. I hope so. I mean, you see a lot of people go into space these days, and I, I don’t mean to be negative, but a lot of people go in, you know, celebrities and so what’s, what is the contribution that like, what’s the point of this mission? I think moving forward, scientists themselves that have designed this experiment should go and tax these experiments, because it has has more impact, for more positive results, for for people here on Earth.

David Ariosto – I would play the devil’s advocate. I think that maybe the thinking in terms of the celebrities and such is just sort of drum up popular interest. And that’s the through popular interest comes greater investments. And, you know, sort of maybe a normalization of space, but, but you to your point. I mean, you’re absolutely right. I actually want to get, you know, sort of the last bit of time that we have here to why you decided to to study this. I think this is just a fascinating story. I mean, you, you grew up in Morocco, and you had a father who was, well, I’m going to let you tell the story, but you had a father that was seemingly pushing you to be empowered in your own right, whether it’s through stem or any other aspects of your life.

Nadia Maarouf – Yeah, so I was born and raised in a small rural community in Morocco. Was about 5000 people at that time. I think it’s more probably about 12,000 right now, and women and men, girls and boys, didn’t have the same rights, the same privileges, including going to school and worry. We can go to school. And a lot of my my friends in high school just get married. Sometimes they are interested in it. Sometimes there’s the cultural norms that you know, you get married in high school and you start a family, or if you want to go to work, then you do some of the jobs, like cashier in administrative jobs, until you become a mother, and then you focus on your on your family. I have five brothers.

My father was, I’m hesitant to say he was a feminist in in a place where there were not many men that believed that girls and boys and everybody, if you want to work for for what you want, then you should have that opportunity. And so he was, he was he was advocating for me to sometimes I was the only girl in the class, and, you know, try to just remind me that this is, this is not normal now, but it would pay off later. And so, yeah, I was very lucky to have a father like that who helped me and encouraged me to pursue my education. And so he was my hero. I’m pretty sure a lot of people think like that about their parents, but in my case, I think it was little bit extreme with regards how far he went to make sure I had those opportunities. And so I part of my educational, part of the mandatory things I had to do was take one though I was four years old when I was enrolled, and that was because he wanted me to be able to defend myself. A lot of girls and women, unfortunately, had to endure a lot of domestic abuse, and it was kind of people who just brush it off, like here, you hear it in the news, but over there, it’s just a daily struggle. I moved to the UK after. Words, because I knew in Morocco I was not going to be able to pursue the dreams I wanted to. I continued with my Taekwondo, and the aim was that I was going to finish my undergrad, and I was doing really well when taekwondo was four times national champion, and there were talks about me going to well, not talks.

There were plans that I was going to go to Korea spend the year, came back and in for Team GB in the Olympics. But I have been to Korea every summer since 2007 so about four times, four summers in Korea training, and then the year, the end of my undergrad, my taekwondo master was one of those people you’d meet once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, he was an incredible human being, very passionate about taekwondo. He gave me a lot of opportunities, including that one year training in Korea, February, 2010 he had a heart attack on a treadmill when we were training 52 year old, healthy. We thought he was healthy, but apparently he had some heart issues. He passed away. And then I still went to Korea in end of May to start my year training in 2011 and then come back to the UK to try to get into the the Team GB. And then, when I was in Korea, I had a call that my my father was in in in the hospital awaiting heart surgery because he just had a heart attack. Booked a flight.

I went to Morocco. I went with him through the surgeries and everything. And then I had a light bulb moment. You know, it was two assaults in less than one year, people that I really, really, really loved and cared about, and then I got into a master’s degree with the focus on cardiovascular pharmacogenomics, because I was very interested in personalized medicine. And one size does not fit all. I think pharmaceutical companies really like that one size fits all, because that’s how they make profit. But I wanted to focus on the personalized aspects of it. And after that, I yeah, I came to Canada and was lucky to get a scholarship to study cardiac sciences with the focus on preventive cardiology, because it just occurred to me that there are statins that are now PCs, canine inhibitors and all these kind of fancy drugs, but they don’t prevent heart disease. They just manage it, or they wait until a heart attack occurs, and then we just manage it, and by that time, the heart muscle is already damaged, and there’s not much to do except just manage the disease until the person dies, and usually with lower quality of life. And so that’s where this this vaccine came, came through. And I’m very lucky, because a lot of people would go their entire life without doing something like that, but I was really, really lucky to be involved with that project, and I’m very hopeful that it will make it to to markets and people can benefit from it all over the world. And I really hope that, again, what it doesn’t have to be me, but that experiments can be tested in space and bring the data back to Earth to show that it’s working or it’s not working, it’s science experiments. We don’t know until we put it to the test, Spoken like

David Ariosto – a true scientist. Dr. Nadia Maarouf, thank you so much for joining us here on Space Minds.

Nadia Maarouf – Pleasure is mine, David. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.