MRC Workshop - Space for health or health for space?

This Workshop was organised jointly by the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the British National Space Centre (BNSC), and was held on 5th August 2002 at the Royal Society in London with the intention of bringing together some of the leading biomedical researchers from the UK and overseas to discuss the opportunities presented by space-based research programmes in the area of biomedicine, and the benefits such programmes might provide for terrestrial health needs.

The day was divided into four sessions: bone physiology, muscle physiology, cardiovascular physiology and neurovestibular physiology. Each session focused not only on the research that has been carried out in space itself, but also looked on the importance of earth based studies and the successful collaborations between the two.

MRC has produced a report of the meeting (pdf, 43kb). The report cover (pdf, 1.3Mb), agenda (pdf, 20kb) and list of participants (pdf, 20kb) are also available.

In addition links to the day's presentations are given below alongside the respective speaker. The speakers' names are all linked to their e-mail addresses while each title is linked to the relevant abstract and presentation.

Session 1 - Bone Physiology

Dr Jonathan Reeve	Overview
Prof Mike Horton	'Space medicine' research: cellular biomechanics and new bone-active medicines
Prof Allen Goodship	Bone loss during long term space flight is prevented by the application of a short term impulsive mechanical stimulus
Dr Hugh Montgomery	Weightlessness and exercise in the study of bone remodelling
Dr Benny Elmann-Larsen	Osteoporosis and genes in space

Session 2 - Muscle Physiology

Prof Terry Partridge	Biological basis of maintenance of skeletal muscle
Dr Olga Rutherford	The effects of spaceflight on skeletal muscle
Dr Stephen Harridge	A mechano-sensitive growth factor in human skeletal muscle
Prof Mike Rennie	The effects of micogravity on muscle and bone mass and protein turnover
Prof Marco Narici	Adaptations of the musculoskeletal system to ageing and spaceflight

Section 3 - Cardiovascular Physiology

Prof Desmond Sheridan	Overview
Dr Jan Meck	Overview of space contribution to field
Prof Rupert Gerzer	Challenges for space physiology: Intergrated team approaches to pepare for the individualised medicine of the future
Prof Mike Spyer	Exemplar of the use of space research
Dr Peter Norsk	Microgravity on ISS: A tool for understanding the effect of gravity on cardiac function

Section 4 - Neurovestibular Physiology

Dr Bill Paloski	The role of Neurophysiology in exploring space v. The role of space in exploring Neurophsyiology
Dr Joe McIntyre	Human Neurophysiology: What can be learned from experiments in microgravity?
Dr Nick Davey	The influence of gravity on the control of voluntary movement in man - the effect of dance training

Keynote speech - Microencapsulation

Prof Oya Alpar

Microgravity: a tool for studying microencapsulation technology?

Jeremy Curtis, UK Microgravity Co-ordinator
Rutherford Appleton Laboratory

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