A new agreement between Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Space Medicine and the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) will enable a new international collaboration for scientific research and discovery in the field of space health to better understand human resilience and behavioral health in remote and isolated environments resembling the challenges of spaceflight.
The collaboration between AAD’s Polar Medicine Unit and the Center for Space Medicine and the Center’s Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) will outline priorities and nominate pilot projects for the 2024-2025AAD winter season. The TRISH consortium will select project proposals in the coming months for consideration in the program. Proposals addressing behavioral challenges associated with extreme isolation and the need to develop advanced autonomous medical care needed for long-duration space travel are of specific interest. The products developed and matured through this collaboration also could be relevant to addressing the challenges of delivering healthcare to remote communities on Earth.
“There is tremendous value in transcending national borders in the interest of scientific discovery. Our international collaboration with the AAD will extract insights to benefit all future astronauts, as well as other explorers of extreme environments,” said Dr. Dorit Donoviel, associate professor in the Center for Space Medicine at Baylor and TRISH executive director. “This agreement marks the beginning of yet another exciting venture into space health research for TRISH, and we look forward to collaborating with the AAD to advance our shared goal of promoting safe human exploration.”
Space travel can be physically and mentally challenging
