ISS Experiments helping to develop quick lung tests

For the millions of people suffering from asthma around the world, pioneering research in orbit is opening new ways to understand what goes wrong in patients with airway inflammation. The results are helping to develop quick lung tests for an improved quality of life – both on Earth and in space. With each lungful of air, our bodies absorb oxygen and exhale waste-product molecules. In people with asthma, inflammation in the lung adds nitric oxide to exhaled air. Doctors measure the amount of nitric oxide exhaled by patients to diagnose inflamed lungs and asthma. Up on the International Space Station, astronauts are breathing for the sake of science. The Airway Monitoring experiment looks at the amount of nitric oxide expelled by the space travellers in a microgravity environment.