A Medical Device Daily

The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas) reported receiving a research grant worth more than $9.8 million over five years from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA; Washington).

The focus of the research study, titled, “Lung Cancer Pathogenesis and HZE Particle Exposure,“ will be the identification of solid-tumor cancer risks from space radiation.

Data will be collected from animal models and tissues at the cellular and molecular level, with special emphasis on extrapolating the collected knowledge to humans. Radiation exposures required to conduct the research will use ground-based irradiation facilities at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory Brookhaven National Laboratory (Upton, New York).

The grant adds another NASA Specialized Center of Research (NSCOR) to the space radiation program. NSCOR is designed to advance knowledge in the biological and biomedical sciences and technology arenas. The ultimate application of this knowledge is to enable human space flight and long-term planetary missions. “It expands the pool of research scientists and engineers trained to meet the challenges, as we prepare for future human space exploration missions,“ NASA said in a statement.

NSCOR differs from an individual grant award by incorporating a number of complementary research projects. NASA said that the solicitation for proposals on “Estimation of Solid Tumor Cancer Risks“ drew 11 proposals.