yet2’s client, NASA, is seeking Precision Health Techniques that use detailed phenotyping of an individual astronaut to create personalized plans about an individual’s response to the environment, diet, medications, exercise regimen, etc. Solutions of highest interest are techniques focusing on individualized preventative therapy and maintaining or enhancing mission performance (rather than disease diagnosis/treatment).
Background
The rapidly advancing field of precision health offers opportunities to enhance prevention, diagnostics, and treatment modalities for NASA astronauts beyond that applied in traditional clinical decision making. Recent trends in terrestrial medicine have led the Human Research Program to form the Precision Health Initiative (PHI) project to investigate the use of precision medicine techniques to improve astronaut health and performance. The PHI project seeks to maintain an individual astronaut’s health and optimal mission performance, utilizing in-depth understanding of individual profiles and how they relate to human health and performance during spaceflight.
Constraints
- Solutions must be actionable with an evidence base to support its clinical benefit to astronauts
- Technique must have direct relevance for crew members exposed to the stressors of spaceflight, including space radiation, altered gravity, isolation/confinement, distance from Earth, and hostile/closed environments.
- These include issues such as muscle and bone loss, cognitive resilience, etc. (see Human Research Roadmap spaceflight risks)
- A phenotype “technique” can encompass any clinical practice, strategy, analytics, test, or process that provides or supports a clinically actionable medical outcome for an individual, such as supplements, diet, exercises, medications, etc.
- The ideal solution will require little to no modification to be readily adapted into space medical operations nor create a large burden to an astronaut’s routine
Possible Solution Areas
- Precision Health
- Personalized medicine
- Precision medicine
- Individualized healthcare
Desired Outcome of the Solution
Looking for a solution that is clinically actionable for NASA in the short-term with low barriers to implementation.
Related Tech Needs
NASA Seeking: PC Application to run Medical & Scientific Devices
Seeking: Liquid Biopsy Technology for Early Cancer Detection
Seeking: InSpace Novel Sanitization and Sterilization Techniques
Photo Credit: ansumansimu2017 from Pixabay & Medicine by IconMark from the Noun Project
