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Fact Checking CASIS Claims About Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Research On ISS

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
March 4, 2019
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Keith’s 4 March update: No response from NASA or CASIS.
Keith’s 1 March note: I just sent this media inquiry to CASIS, NASA HEOMD, and NASA PAO:
Does this brain/organ chip research have specifically stated goals of contributing to Alzheimer’s and/or Parkinson’s research? If so then why does NIH make no mention of those stated goals? Or is someone at NASA/CASIS inferring some relevance? The only place I see this Alzheimer’s/Parkinson’s relevance is in NASA and CASIS PR material and in CASIS tweets.
If you go to this 4 December 2018 NIH release Blast Off! Sending Human Tissue Chips into Space at there is no mention of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s made with regard to this research activity. This NIH Project Information pageOrgans-on-Chips as a Platform for Studying Effects of Microgravity on Human Physiology: Blood-Brain Barrier-Chip in Health and Disease makes no mention of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s – yet it has a very, very long list of key words at the bottom of the page.
Neither this CASIS press release The ISS National Lab and NCATS Announce International Space Station Funding Opportunity Focused on Human Physiology Research or this CASIS press release The ISS National Lab and NCATS Announce Five Projects Selected from International Space Station Funding Opportunity Focused on Human Physiology Research make any mention of Alzheimer’s and/or Parkinson’s.
Oddly this NASA webpage Organs-On-Chips as a Platform for Studying Effects of Microgravity on Human Physiology makes reference to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s – even though NIH makes no reference. NASA and CASIS have made these Alzheimer’s claims before – with no follow up i.e. Subtracting Gravity from Alzheimer’s and Research May Unlock Secret of Alzheimer’s.
If there is no stated or intended relevance to Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s then this is just irresponsible and inaccurate for NASA and/or CASIS to claim that it is and such claims need to be removed with statements that they were incorrectly asserted in the first place.
Research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s is a big deal. The population afflicted with these diseases is expanding rapidly. If ISS is truly involved in research in these areas then it needs to be promoted to the fullest extent possible. But if it is not, then claiming that it is constitutes professional irresponsibility and outright deception.
I have lost 3 parents to Alzheimer’s – two in the last year. As such, as a biologist and a former NASA life science peer review panel manager, I am rather familiar with far too many claims of relevance made with regard Alzheimer’s that are simply not real. I am going to be contacting the relevant Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s advocacy groups about this claim by NASA and CASIS – unless you can provide proof of actual, stated goals of this NASA/NIH research that are explicitly related to Alzheimer’s and/or Parkinson’s.
CASIS has removed me from their media contact list and has refused to respond to previous inquiries. As such I do not expect a reply from them.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

3 responses to “Fact Checking CASIS Claims About Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Research On ISS”

  1. TheBrett says:
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    I’m curious whether this was a real thing, too, in terms of Alzheimer’s research. It’s proven stubbornly resistant to any efforts to find treatment for it, so if space research could contribute then that’s a big deal.

  2. Nick K says:
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    I suspect over reach.

    In all likelihood someone at NASA or CASIS with little real medical science background-most of the people running the “science program” on ISS are actually engineers. They probably assumed that the tissue research could be used to study the diseases; now they just need to find a researcher willing to actually propose and then lead the studies.

    First the researcher needs to find the funds to support the research since NASA does not support this any longer. Then the researcher competes for scarce resources like crew time to get it into the program. CASIS actually has good amount of crew time since they are under-utilizing their allocation. And if they want a genuine astronaut researcher to conduct the studies in orbit, there are few of those people qualified as crew members. They’ve lost a lot of crew members over the last couple years; there are only a couple dozen astronauts left who might fly, and a lot who were lost were medical/scientists. And besides only 1 or 2 Americans fly at a time, 3 or 4 in a year. So there might be quite a long wait to get the right support.

  3. Michael Spencer says:
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    CASIS and Keith are in a tug of war. Only one of them knows it, though.