With its manned space missions at an advanced stage of development, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has joined hands with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) for collaboration in the field of space medicine and research.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Dinesh Kumar Singh, Director, Human Spaceflight Centre and Dr Srinivas M, Director, AIIMS on March 10, which aims to promote joint research aligned with ISRO’s priority areas, with a shared objective of advancing human health, performance and safety during human space missions
Long duration Human Space Missions such as Bharatiya Antariksh Station and Crewed Missions to Moon offer unique medical challenges due to the extreme space environment and microgravity.
This co-operation is targeted to conduct ground / space-based studies to develop multidisciplinary space medicine expertise, medical devices, procedure and protocols to maintain human health and performance under extreme space environment as well as advance health care for the nation, according to a statement issued by ISRO.
Focused research and developments are planned in the fields of human physiology, behavioural health, immunology and gut Microbiome, biomedical, neuroscience and neurophysiology, nutrition and metabolic health, musculoskeletal atrophy and aging in microgravity, infectious diseases control and countermeasures for improving human health and performance in space environment.
Through this research collaboration, ISRO and AIIMS reaffirm their commitment to advancing space medicine, fostering interdisciplinary research and building long-term institutional cooperation to support India’s human space flight programme initiatives and it will also spur new innovations and create new opportunities for the scientific community in the country, ISRO said.
