Un alumno de Biología de la Universidad de Navarra, en la fase final de un programa de la Agencia Espacial Europea
A student of Biology of the University of Navarra, in the final phase of a program of the European Space Agency.
Antonio Leyte attended the submission awards ceremony in Germany.
Antonio Leyte, student , 4th year Biology student at the University of Navarra, attended the submission awards ceremony of the "Success" program of the European Space Agency (ESA), which was held on March 15 in Cologne (Germany). After having passed the initial phase, in which 5,000 participants submitted 2,000 works, his study on the distribution of human organs in places without gravity aspires, along with 49 others, to the first place. The award consists of a one-year stay at ESA's space engineering center in the Netherlands, to prepare the approvals and finalize the details before the launch.
Specifically, Antonio's proposal aims to analyze in mice the role of a structure that is essential for the body's symmetry axes. "Without it, serious diseases such as Kartagener's syndrome, which leads to poor positioning of the organs inside people, would occur," he points out.
In this way, he will examine under microgravity conditions the evolution of the limbs and the arrangement of the organs during the first stages of the training of the embryos of these animals.
Aside from that syndrome, his input could contribute to another ambitious goal. "Understanding how the space environment affects the reproductive core topic and development phases of mammalian reproduction may help sustain life beyond Earth on stations or other planets," he says.
Among other techniques, the student will employ magnetic resonance imaging, which allows viewing slices of objects without exposing them to radiation, immunofluorescence systems and DNA microarrays (biochips), a state-of-the-art tool for comparing gene expression.
With the "Success" program, the European Space Agency aims to introduce university students from the organization's member countries to space research , in fields such as Earth observation, physics and life sciences. The competition aims to select one of the projects designed by young people to be launched to the International Space Station, the largest satellite ever built. Although it will take several years to complete, it is currently available as a unique laboratory : it has no gravity, gives a view of the entire planet and allows looking at the stars directly, without the interposition of the atmosphere.