The Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA) and international astronaut biobank.

TitleThe Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA) and international astronaut biobank.
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2024
AuthorsOverbey EG, Kim JK, Tierney BT, Park J, Houerbi N, Lucaci AG, Medina SGarcia, Damle N, Najjar D, Grigorev K et al.
JournalNature
Volume632
Issue8027
Pagination1145-1154
Date Published2024 Aug
ISSN1476-4687
KeywordsAerospace Medicine, Animals, Astronauts, Atlases as Topic, Biological Specimen Banks, Epigenomics, Genomics, Humans, Internationality, Male, Metabolomics, Microbiota, Precision Medicine, Proteomics, Space Flight
Abstract

Spaceflight induces molecular, cellular and physiological shifts in astronauts and poses myriad biomedical challenges to the human body, which are becoming increasingly relevant as more humans venture into space1-6. Yet current frameworks for aerospace medicine are nascent and lag far behind advancements in precision medicine on Earth, underscoring the need for rapid development of space medicine databases, tools and protocols. Here we present the Space Omics and Medical Atlas (SOMA), an integrated data and sample repository for clinical, cellular and multi-omic research profiles from a diverse range of missions, including the NASA Twins Study7, JAXA CFE study8,9, SpaceX Inspiration4 crew10-12, Axiom and Polaris. The SOMA resource represents a more than tenfold increase in publicly available human space omics data, with matched samples available from the Cornell Aerospace Medicine Biobank. The Atlas includes extensive molecular and physiological profiles encompassing genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and microbiome datasets, which reveal some consistent features across missions, including cytokine shifts, telomere elongation and gene expression changes, as well as mission-specific molecular responses and links to orthologous, tissue-specific mouse datasets. Leveraging the datasets, tools and resources in SOMA can help to accelerate precision aerospace medicine, bringing needed health monitoring, risk mitigation and countermeasure data for upcoming lunar, Mars and exploration-class missions.

DOI10.1038/s41586-024-07639-y
Alternate JournalNature
PubMed ID38862028
PubMed Central IDPMC11357981
Grant ListR01 CA249054 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
R01 AI151059 / AI / NIAID NIH HHS / United States
P01 CA214274 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
R35 CA220499 / CA / NCI NIH HHS / United States
R01 MH117406 / MH / NIMH NIH HHS / United States