WRAIR presents the effects of space flight on wound healing at the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research

Dr. Aarti Gautam, Stacy Ann Miller, and Allison Hoke, research biologists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, presented on the effects of microgravity on wound healing at the 40th annual American Society for Gravitational and Space Research conference held in December 2024.

Dr. Gautam, Ms. Miller, and Ms. Hoke joined more than 1,000 other researchers and stakeholders at ASGSR, which was held in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The WRAIR presentations covered multiple space missions that investigated the effects of space flight and low gravity on molecular-level healing that occurs in bone, muscle, and skin injuries.

“This research is the culmination of work we have been doing with the International Space Station for 15 years,” Dr. Gautam said of the study’s origin. “Soldiers are often injured in severe settings that don’t allow them to use their injured limbs. The weightlessness of microgravity is a great way to study limb disuse, so it’s a highly effective way to study injury healing.”

The presented studies investigated the effects of microgravity on RNA expression and integrated the findings with genetic and protein marker changes as a result of healing. Analysis showed that the severe conditions of spaceflight slowed healing by suppressing the immune system, inhibiting cell division, and impeding migration pathways.

“These results are consistent with our previous findings and other presentations from ASGSR this year,” Dr. Gautam explained. “By building a stronger understanding of what happens at the molecular level when an injury is healing in austere environments, we take an important step to better supporting soldiers who may be injured in austere or far-forward environments.”

WRAIR scientists conducted multiple experiments to understand the effects of spaceflight environments on health and diseases. These spaceflights included one experiment on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s last manned mission STS135, the first mission to use male mice for a bone healing study onboard the ISS (Rodent Research-4), and another mission that involved wound incision in orbit (Rodent Research-22).

These efforts are part of WRAIR’s 15-year and ongoing collaboration with the International Space Station and represent historic milestones in space flight research. Given the ISS’s impending closure in 2030, these presentations represent the significant presence and impact of WRAIR in the area of difficult-to-study microgravity research.