UniCamillus is in space thanks to one of its students. Her name is Annalisa Palazzi, a fourth-year student on the MSc Medicine and Surgery programme, who presented a project ‘HypEGI –Hypergravity Effect on Gene activity of Hepatic Insulin’ to the European Space Agency (ESA). “It’s a project that evaluates the effects of hypergravity on the genes responsible for insulin synthesis in pancreatic and muscle cells”, she explains. It is a very specific study that could be useful not only with a view to man’s return to the Moon and trips to Mars, which have now become the primary objective of all space agencies worldwide, but also in more ordinary environments.
“Hypergravity is a condition that many professionals are exposed to”, explains Annalisa, “even on Earth, not just in space. Think of people travelling by plane, for example. So the results we obtain could already be useful in everyday life. If scientific progress is gradually enabling us to achieve the goal of going to the Moon or Mars, it is clear that this type of research will have to be developed more and more in the future”.
Annalisa came up with this idea by combining different passions she has developed during her studies: “Before studying medicine here at UniCamillus, I graduated in Economics in English from Luiss University”. Switching from economics to medicine, a completely different field, is certainly not a conventional decision. But there is a reason why this young woman’s two careers are linked: “While I was studying Economics, I decided to take a course as a military nurse, during which I realised that I was very interested in the field of health economics, but also in developing the medical aspect from a practical point of view and not just limiting myself to the field of economic management in medicine. So, after three years, I decided to study Medicine at UniCamillus”.
While studying various subjects for her exams, she became interested in this particular topic. But it was a talk at the ‘Horizons of Medicine’ series of conferences, part of the UniCamillus Third Mission meetings, that gave her the final push. The topic was ‘Medicine and Astronauts: Exploring Health in Space‘, and Annalisa’s project, which had been in the pipeline for some time, began to take shape. Thanks to Professor Tavazzi‘s help, she eventually won a scholarship to attend a summer school at the ESA headquarters in Luxembourg. There she met other colleagues, students and researchers: “We were divided into working groups and mine turned out to be very well formed. We got on well and continued to work together”. And they followed it through to the end, as Annalisa says: “Our work is ready and finished. We just need to put it into practice. That’s why we’re waiting for an answer from the ESA laboratories so that we can get the funding and use their facilities”. She introduces her colleagues and the work they have done together: “I worked with many other professionals and students like myself. I was assisted by two neurobiologists and three engineers, all from abroad. In fact, it was an international project that I created and proposed first to the group and then to the ESA committee. They liked the idea and we developed it further, both from a cost-benefit perspective and in its presentation to the public, particularly via social media. We also created a mascot (a kitten designed by Annalisa herself, editor’s note) to represent our project”.
So Annalisa, along with her colleagues Andreea Monica Scorta (Romania), Joshua Khan and Torin Wain (UK) and Alejandro Salinas Sola (Spain), is waiting to hear back from ESA: “The agency is always launching very specific projects and we have applied for our research in the areas we have mentioned. We cannot apply for any project but for one that will allow us to use specific equipment in the laboratories. However, we are also waiting for responses to other calls for proposals. We hope that the research we are doing will give us answers about the effects that astronauts and humans have on their bodies under certain very specific conditions. We hope to have an answer soon. In the meantime, I am grateful to my tutors at UniCamillus for believing in my idea, supporting it, and helping and encouraging me to get my project off the ground”.