The National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) awarded $175,000 in July to Qingsu Cheng, assistant professor, biomedical engineering, for a one-year research project to evaluate the risk of breast cancer during long-term space travel.
The findings could help medical experts develop better prevention and treatment strategies for primary and secondary breast cancer.
Cheng will evaluate the breast cancer risks for female astronauts who travel to Mars, a journey that would last at least 27 months. Mammographic density (MD), he explains, is an important risk factor for all types of breast cancer and he will evaluate changes to these astronauts’ MDs.
According to NASA, living in space for six months exposes a person to roughly the same amount of radiation as 1,000 chest X-rays. (The Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field protect a person from the types of radiation found in space.) This level of exposure can damage DNA and lead to health problems including cancer, central nervous damage, bone loss and cardiovascular disease.
From battling breast cancer to identifying bacteria
Cheng’s cutting-edge, translational research in the areas of cancer and biomaterials has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NASA, which funded his previous study on astronaut health on the moon and Mars. He has published 25 peer-reviewed journal papers, which received more than 400 citations.
“UWM is giving me the opportunity to contribute to broadening our knowledge about the interaction between microenvironmental factors and a variety of diseases,” Cheng says.
Cheng’s cancer research is in the areas of early detection, risk assessment, and development of non-invasive treatments, which manipulate the tumor microenvironment in a way that combats breast cancer.
In addition, he is investigating the biomechanical properties of breast tissue—knowledge that aids in detecting the disease and planning surgical procedures—and fibroblasts, a non-cancerous cell type that is found in most solid tumors and associated with disease’s progression.