“Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight” Listed Among Most Influential Papers of 2013 and 2014

“Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight” by Michael A. Schmidt, Ph.D. and Thomas J. Goodwin, Ph.D. was recently featured by Springer Science Media, highlighting the most influential articles of the past two years.

Specifically, “Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight” was among the three most downloaded scientific papers published in 2013 and 2014 from Springer in the journal Metabolomics.  In their paper, the authors lay out a sophisticated case for how personalized medicine may transform the way humans explore the space environment.

According to Dr. Schmidt, “The ability to analyze the genome, epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome has deepened our understanding of the uniqueness of individuals and of how individual vulnerabilities may be further revealed under the extreme conditions of space. We and our colleagues are working to translate this complexity into personalized countermeasure solutions that enhance astronaut safety and performance on specific missions, like the ISS, Moon, and Mars.”

Dr. Goodwin states, “There is sufficient evidence to deploy certain personalized countermeasures for astronauts today.  Beyond this, we suggest a path where the space medicine community craft a scientific roadmap aimed at broadening development of personalized countermeasures for the near and far term.”

Source: “Personalized Medicine in Human Space Flight:  Using Omics Based Analyses to Develop Individualized Countermeasures that Enhance Astronaut Safety and Performance,” (Schmidt, MA, Goodwin, TJ. Metabolomics 2013;9(6):1134-1156).

Michael A. Schmidt, Ph.D. is the founder of Sovaris Aerospace, LLC.  He has developed Omics training programs at George Washington University School Health Sciences and is on the Omics Applications Expert Panel for the European Society for Translational Medicine.  Dr. Schmidt has ongoing human performance collaborations at NASA Johnson Space Center and NASA Ames Research Center.His work is focused on human performance in extreme conditions and, also, on translating that work to athletic performance and clinical medicine.

Thomas J. Goodwin, Ph.D. is Manager of the Disease Modeling & Tissue Analogues Laboratory, Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division, and is the Lead Scientist for Oxidative Stress and Damage at NASA Johnson Space Center.  He is also the Chair of the Omics Applications Expert Panel for the European Society for Translational Medicine (EUSTM).