Towards human exploration of space: The THESEUS review series on immunology research priorities
Open accessAbstract
Dysregulation of the immune system occurs during spaceflight and may represent a crew health risk during exploration missions because astronauts are challenged by many stressors. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the biology of immune modulation under spaceflight conditions in order to be able to maintain immune homeostasis under such challenges. In the framework of the THESEUS project whose aim was to develop an integrated life sciences research roadmap regarding human space exploration, experts working in the field of space immunology, and related disciplines, established a questionnaire sent to scientists around the world. From the review of collected answers, they deduced a list of key issues and provided several recommendations such as a maximal exploitation of currently available resources on Earth and in space, and to increase increments duration for some ISS crew members to 12 months or longer. These recommendations should contribute to improve our knowledge about spaceflight effects on the immune system and the development of countermeasures that, beyond astronauts, could have a societal impact.
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Spaceflight may be associated with hypersensitive reactions to some medications.
“Although this mechanism is not well understood, spaceflight may be associated with hypersensitive reactions to some medications110,117.”
From Key points for the development of antioxidant cocktails to prevent cellular stress and damage caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS) during manned space missions (2021) · cites this paper as [117]
The Introduction (page not provided) reports prolonged allergic and skin hypersensitivity symptoms in some astronauts during spaceflight. It does not say those reactions were to medications; searches for medication and drug hypersensitivity found no such passage. (LLM, conf=0.85)
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- Authors
- Frippiat, J.-P., Crucian, B. E., de Quervain, D. J.-F., Grimm, D., Montano, N., Praun, S., Roozendaal, B., Schelling, G., Thiel, M., Ullrich, O., & Choukèr, A.
- Affiliations
- Stress, IMmunité, PAthogènes (FR)
- Johnson Space Center (US)
- Aarhus University (DK)
- University of Milan (IT)
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Heidelberg University (DE)
- University of Zurich (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Frippiat, Jean-Pol
- ORCID
- Venue
- npj Microgravity
- Published
- 2016-12-01
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 16040-16040
- ISSN
- 2373-8065 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5515533
- OpenAlex
- W2560639677
- Cited by
- 100
- References
- 97
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 20 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 3
- FWCI
- 1.45
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- npj Microgravity (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Archivio Istituzionale della Ricerca (Universita Degli Studi Di Milano) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Open access LMU (Ludwid Maxmilian's Universitat Munchen) (submittedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Arizona State University
- European Science Foundation
- Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales
- Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Spaceflight effects on biology
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Immunotoxicology and immune responses
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
- Keywords
- immune homeostasis, human space exploration, International Space Station crew, countermeasures, research priorities, astronaut health
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