NASA and the national laboratory Lawrence (USA) found that proton irradiation enhances the process occurring during the development of tumors. This information, as scientists hope will not only help protect astronauts in flight, but also will allow oncologists to better understand the impact of radiation on the human body.

Cosmic rays do not spare even the Earth is not something that the astronauts. (Illustration Claus Lunau / Science Photo Library.)

Interest NASA in similar researches easy to understand. Protons, subatomic particles, are a primary source of cosmic radiation, which is obtained in the space people. And though everything was reduced to near-earth space, now that began serious talks about the Martian expedition and flights of asteroids), NASA is trying to gather as much information about what the problem might be waiting for astronauts during a long space journey.

The new study, according to scientists, sheds light on the potential risks from even small doses of proton radiation that threaten healthy human tissues with the passage of anti-cancer radiotherapy, and astronauts - during your stay in space. The authors studied the biological impact of epithelial cells of low-energy protons, as well as the tendency of protons to strengthen occur during the progress of the tumor. This process, epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMF), is associated with tumor progression. In addition, the EMF is associated with the emergence and neck surgery fibrosis, one of the most frequent of late effects of radiation therapy.

The most important observation was that the protons themselves able to induce EMF-changes in normal epithelial cells of the person. And although the total dose of radiation received by astronauts, are relatively small compared with what is the share of the patient in radiotherapy, the results suggest that even their is enough to provoke a potentially disastrous EMF.

Read more about the research and its results can be read in the open web journal PLoS ONE.

Prepared according to NASA.