Meet the Initiative — EXPAND
Expanding health research in commercial spaceflight
Did you know that less than 700 people have flown into space? Of those 700, the large majority have been trained government astronauts in peak physical condition. As the commercial spaceflight industry continues to grow and provide access to space to more people, it is crucial that our understanding of human health in space is scaled to better represent the true diversity of our population on Earth.
To take full advantage of the opportunity presented by commercial spaceflight, TRISH created EXPAND, the first-of-its-kind private research platform for space medicine. The EXPAND program leverages public and private spaceflight partnerships to create opportunities for space health research, unify the resulting data for further study, and grow the understanding of human adaptations to spaceflight.
Partnerships between commercial spaceflight companies and EXPAND enable private astronauts to participate in space medicine research, enriching their trip to space by taking part in the larger goal of finding health solutions for space, but also for advancing human health on Earth. By participating in EXPAND, private astronauts participate and collect health data before, during, and after spaceflight. The unique backgrounds of private astronauts, including age and medical history, offer a rare opportunity to expand the space medicine data pool and provide the opportunity for researchers to find health solutions before they’re needed. Their contributions help researchers further study the adaptations humans make to spaceflight, advancing our ability to detect medical conditions earlier and treat them more effectively.
Safeguarding privacy while increasing collaboration, innovation, and solutions
After collection, these invaluable health data and bio-samples are made available to the scientific community through the EXPAND Database and Biorepository. To make a request, researchers must have a hypothesis-driven question and Institutional Review Board (IRB) or IRB-equivalent approval. This, in combination with request review and approval by EXPAND’s Data Privacy and Release Board, keeps patient/subject privacy secure and ensures that their samples are well utilized.
EXPAND at the forefront of space medicine research
By growing the field to include research on a broader cross-section of humans in space, this program is strengthening our medical capabilities and innovating new technologies that have cascading applications in healthcare—both in space and here on Earth.
EXPAND works in concert with TRISH’s other initiatives: HERMES, which establishes a real-time data-sharing platform that enables the seamless flow of medical information from the patient to their care team, and SENTINEL, which works to advance the capabilities of autonomous tissue chips, ultimately allowing for personalized treatment and preventive care of astronauts during and after long-duration missions in deep space. Together, the EXPAND, HERMES, and SENTINEL initiatives strengthen our medical knowledge and capabilities in space, keeping humans healthy no matter where they explore.
