cancer research and send humans to Mars may seem light years away, but advances in technology have put them on the same flight path. Last week, NASA and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) announced that each intends to spend annually $ 10 million for the next 5 years in a coordinated effort to develop devices that could both detect speed cancer on the Earth and keep astronauts healthy during long stays from home.
to beat the enthusiasm for the idea, NASA Administrator Dan Goldin and NCI Director Richard Klausner brought together two dozen molecular biologists, geneticists, pharmacologists and chemists to discuss how nanotechnology and bioengineering can revolutionize health care on Earth and in space. "We bring the hospital medicine," said David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and chairman of the working group NASA / NCI on biomolecular systems and technologies. "It's a tremendous opportunity."
Goldin and Klausner hatched the idea of collaboration 3 years ago at a dinner hosted by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and flew through their agencies. Under the new agreement, the NCI and NASA disburse grants separately, but be free to complete each other projects. Klausner gains access to the expertise of the space agency in the small and light construction equipment, while Goldin enhances the scientific credibility of the human spaceflight program of NASA and strengthens links with the biological community in full boom.
The astronauts to Mars may be in space for more than 4 years, bombarded by hazardous radiation and situations where face even minor accidents - such as a tear in a spacesuit - could prove disastrous. The fight against these threats may call for machines that can detect genetic damage at a very early stage, robotic sensors injected into astronauts continuously monitor their health and spatial self-healing combination. These innovations have revolutionary implications for improving health care on Earth, says Klausner.
Of course, the issue of health could be questionable if humans do not take long trips in space. "Why not learn to build robots to do business on Mars?" asked Stanford geneticist David Botstein a population panel on April 13 to discuss the new collaboration. Even Baltimore noted that "radiation problem is very serious" and predicted that it will be difficult to overcome. But Goldin says both robots and humans in the end account will be needed for the exploration of Mars.
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