The Immune System in Space: Are we prepared?

Several limiting factors for human health and performance in microgravity have been clearly identified as an unacceptable risk for long-term and interplanetary flights. Serious concerns arose whether spaceflight-associated immune system dysfunction ultimately precludes the expansion of human presence beyond Earth's orbit. The immune system has undergone many evolutionary steps to cope with a new and changing environment, but `space` has not been evolutionary experienced before. Through endocrine orchestration of cell functions, cell to cell communications and intracellular mechanisms the human body and his immune system have an enormous capacity to adapt and react to altered environmental conditions. Thus, the special sensitivity to altered gravity renders the immune system an ideal biological model system to understand if and how gravity on Earth is required for the normal function of cells and cellular networks. It is one of the most fundamental challenges to find out, if our organism and our cellular machinery are able to live and to adequately perform without the gravity field of Earth.  

Alexander Choukèr is Professor of Medicine at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) in Munich, Germany and guest lecturer at King´s College, London, UK. He is clinical specialist in Anesthesiology at the University Hospital where heads the 'Stress and Immunity' research. His medical and immunological training was received at the LMU and at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Bethesda/USA, respectively. For almost about two decades he has been actively involved in research on the International Space Station, in space analogue environments and been leading inter-disciplinary teams for translational and experimental research. He is member of the European Space Sciences Committee (ESSC) and has been advisor and chairman of the European Space Agency´s (ESA) Life Sciences Working Group and the ESA Topical Team on Immunology.

Oliver Ullrich is Full Professor (Ordinarius), Chair of Anatomy, at the University of Zurich and Professor (Hon.-Prof.) of Space Biotechnology in the Department of Machine Design (IMK), Engineering Design and Product Development, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany. He is leading key research projects in the life sciences research program of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), conducted so far during 17 parabolic flight campaigns, 4 sounding rocket missions and 3 orbital missions, including the International Space Station (ISS). He is elected Academician of the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) for lifetime, Head of Space Medicine / Life Sciences and Member of the Council, German Society for Aerospace Medicine and Project Director and Chairman of the Swiss Parabolic Flight Platform.