http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-30/nasa-funds-study-on-the-effects-of-herpes-in-space/7126382
NASA has put more than $100,000 in funding towards a study into how herpesviruses mutate during spaceflight.
The space agency has awarded researchers at the University of Florida multiple grants, totalling around $US80,000 ($AU110,000), according to IFL Science.
The project is called the Effect of Spaceflight on Herpesvirus Genome Stability and Diversity.
In the study objective, NASA said spaceflight was known to reactivate viruses that are present in the body but dormant.
So far, at least four of the eight known human herpesviruses have been shown to be reactivated because of spaceflight, including varicella zoster virus (VZV), the virus that causes shingles and the chickenpox.
The physiological, emotional and psychological stress associated with spaceflight can result in decreased immunity that reactivates the virus that causes shingles, a disease punctuated by painful skin lesions,” NASA said in 2012.
At the time, the space agency had “developed a technology that can detect immune changes early enough to begin treatment before painful lesions appear in astronauts and people here on Earth”.
The current research will examine the influence of spaceflight on “the mutation rate and diversity” of four herpesviruses — including VZV and herpes simplex virus 1, which causes oral herpes — using samples from astronaut’s saliva and urine collected before, during, and after spaceflight.
NASA’s statement said the study was an opportunity “to examine the influence of space flight on the mutation rate and diversity of human persistent viruses and to assess the potential risk of virus mutations accumulating during long-duration missions”.
Almost all adults are infected by one or more of the eight herpesviruses, NASA said in the 2012 article, but for many the virus remains in an inactive state.
But the space agency wrote that it was “concerned about how the immune system will function over the long stays in space that may be required for exploration missions”.
“Measuring the appearance of herpesviruses in astronaut body fluids serves as a much-needed immune biomarker,” the website read.