| Seq #60 | Thursday, 11 March 2004 | |||||||||||||||||||
| 8:00 AM-10:00 AM Hawaii Convention Center Ballroom, Symposium - Group/Division Sponsored | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Dentists on Mars | ||||||||||||||||||||
Sponsored by: Dental Materials, Mineralized Tissue | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Description: The oral health of astronauts, last studied in the mid-1970s on Skylab, has not been a priority area of study for NASA due to the short length of shuttle stays. But with longer stays on the International Space Station, and planning for a trip to Mars, investigations into how spaceflight affects oral health are needed. The objective of this symposium is to introduce the dental research community to changes occurring in humans who go into space, and how these changes might impact oral health. Dr. Millie Hughes-Fulford, an astronaut-scientist, will review what happens to humans who go into space, and the difficulties of living, and carrying out experiments in space. She will then discuss her research on cell cultures of osteoblasts in space, and in hypergravity Dr. Gerald Sonnenfeld will review immunological changes that occur in spaceflight, and relate the observed decreases in various types of immunological responses to possible effects on oral immunological factors. Dr. Marian Lewis will discuss the effects of spaceflight on gene expression using results from her spaceflight experiments on various cell types. Dr. Jack van Loon, from the Dutch Experiment Support Center, will review what is known about bone loss in humans and rats and metatarsal cultures which go into space, and review ground based models (head down bedrest, and tail suspension) that simulate the unloading of spaceflight. Attendees will gain a knowledge of spaceflight research, and information on getting their own experiments in space. The symposium is supported by the NASA Office of Bioastronautics | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Back to the IADR/AADR/CADR 82nd General Session (March 10-13, 2004)