{"id":2118,"date":"2014-10-20T03:48:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T03:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?page_id=2118"},"modified":"2015-04-13T07:02:27","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T07:02:27","slug":"ukm-needs-more-tools-for-space-research","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/tahun-2014\/october-2014\/ukm-needs-more-tools-for-space-research\/","title":{"rendered":"UKM Needs More Tools For Space Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main \"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">0<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ukm.my%2Fnews%2Farchive%2Ftahun-2014%2Foctober-2014%2Fukm-needs-more-tools-for-space-research%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/?p=2118&amp;via=https:\/\/twitter.com\/ukmtwit\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-toggle-container\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"newsitem_tools\">\n<div class=\"newsitem_info\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span class=\"createby\">ADMINISTRATOR<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"newsitem_text\">\n<div class=\"news_item_article\">\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Research2014\/neoh1.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin<br \/>\nPix Ikhwan Hashim<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">BANGI, 20 October 2014 \u2013 Scientists at The National University of Malaysia (UKM) researching cancer cells, microbes and roundworms in space during and after the Angkasawan programme in 2007 need specialised equipment on earth to continue their experiments.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">One of the project researchers Dr Neoh Hui Min said they need a three-dimensional micro-gravity simulator to simulate the effects of zero-gravity so that they can do the experiments at their Space Science Research laboratory at UKM\u2019s Medical Molecular Biology Institute (UMBI).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She was speaking at a meeting between Malaysian scientists and Dr Chiaki Mukai, Japan\u2019s first woman astronaut and the Director of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency\u2019s\u00a0 (JAXA) Centre for Applied Space Medicine and Human Research, in conjunction with the seventh National Astronaut Day celebrations here today.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Dr Neoh asked whether the Japanese might be interested in assisting by having joint research projects with UMBI.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Present at the meeting was Dato\u2019 Dr Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor Sheikh Mustapha, Malaysia\u2019s first astronaut who helped undertake part of the experiments on cancer cells and microbes in space when he went to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2007.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She said the UKM researchers want to continue experiments on the effects of simulated microgravity on gene expression profile and biological phenotype of <em>Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em>Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em> is a small, free-living soil nematode (roundworm) that lives in many parts of the world and feeds on microbes.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is an important model system for biological research such as genomics, cell biology, neuroscience and aging.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Instead of doing experiments on higher animals, Dr Neoh explained that the roundworm has a lot of advantages, such as a short life cycle, compact genome, stereotypical development, ease of propagation and small size.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Moreover, the whole genome of <em>C. elegans<\/em> have been sequenced which made the task easier.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">She said they want to find out more about gene expression, changes of genes involved in longevity, DNA repair and locomotion and the possible impact on future long term space flight and planetary exploration.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Even if they don\u2019t have the chance to go out in space, they can at least do further experiments at UKM with a micro-gravity simulator.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Apart from equipment to simulate microgravity on earth, the researchers have to control life stages of <em>C. elegans <\/em>in a single generation for accurate gene expression and to carry out experiments conducted on both agar-agar and liquid medium.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">UMBI\u2019s <em>C. elegans <\/em>in space research had actually started in 2006 as a collaboration between UKM scientists with the \u00a0University of Pittsburgh and the biotechnology company \u00a0Bioserve in Colorado.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The experiments were done by UMBI\u2019s research partners in space flown on the US Shuttle STS116 in December 2006.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The research was to observe long-term spaceflight (more than 6 months) on <em>C. elegans <\/em>after many generations<em>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">UMBI is also collaborating with the National Space Agency (ANGKASA) to find out the effects of microgravity on <em>C. elegans, <\/em>which is why they need the simulator as soon as possible.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The UMBI space research is being led by Prof Datuk Dr A Rahman A Jamal with Dr Neoh and six others in the team.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Icon\/ukmnewsportal.png\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Research2014\/neoh2.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"border\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/images\/stories\/Research2014\/neoh3.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ADMINISTRATOR By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin Pix Ikhwan Hashim BANGI, 20 October 2014 \u2013 Scientists at The National University of Malaysia<a class=\"tukm-readmore\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/archive\/tahun-2014\/october-2014\/ukm-needs-more-tools-for-space-research\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2257,"parent":1150,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2118","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2259,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2118\/revisions\/2259"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ukm.my\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}