Purdue News

January 15, 1993 PURDUE AVIAN RESEARCH PROJECT SPREADS ITS WINGS WEST LAFAYETTE, IND.–Purdue University researchers have signed an agreement with researchers from the former Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union to collaborate on microgravity studies using birds on future space flights. Dr. Ronald Hullinger and Professor Patricia Hester of Purdue met with their counterparts at the Avian Microgravity Symposium in the city of Ivanka pri Dunaji (EE-vahn-kuh PREE DOHN-yay) in what is now Slovakia, formerly a part of the recently dissolved Czechoslovakia. The studies will be based at the newly established international Center for Avian Microgravity Research in Ivanka pri Dunaji. "We would like to have gravitational biologists recognize the (chicken) egg as a good model for research in space," said Hullinger, professor of veterinary embryology in Purdue's School of Veterinary Medicine. "The egg can be a valuable model just like mammals and plants are now." The egg is useful, he said, because of its protective outer shell and the opportunity it offers to study development from conception. Hullinger was academic adviser on a March 1989 space-shuttle experiment by John Vellinger, then a Purdue student. The experiment involved sending 16 fertilized two-day-old and 16 fertilized nine-day old eggs into space to test the effects of zero gravity on development. Similar control groups were kept on earth and, except for zero gravity, were subjected to the same conditions of acceleration, vibration, temperature and humidity as their space counterparts. All of the control eggs hatched successfully, as did all of the nine-day-old eggs that flew into space. However, none of the two-day-old space eggs hatched. "We'd like to duplicate the experiment on a future space flight but instead use eggs fertilized at intervals from one day to nine days," Hullinger said. "The nine-day eggs would serve as the control, while the rest of the eggs should help us pinpoint when microgravity becomes a factor in arresting development." In addition to Hullinger, Hester and Vellinger, other individuals who were involved with the Purdue 1989 egg experiment and are now collaborating on the international research are Mark Deuser, president, Space Hardware Optimization Technology Inc., Floyd Knobs, Ind., and Professor Timothy Jones, University of Nebraska Medical Center. Vellinger, who graduated from Purdue in 1989, is vice president of Space Hardware Optimization Technology. It's possible that an experiment from the Center for Avian Microgravity Research could become an integral element of joint agreements signed last fall by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Russian Space Agency. The agreements call for the two agencies to cooperate on human space flight and Mars exploration. "Ideally, if we can get an experiment accepted for flight on one of the U.S./Russian joint missions, we'd like to preserve chemically the specimens in space after the eggs have been opened or the embryos have died," Hullinger said. "At this point, such experiments have to wait until the spacecraft returns to earth to examine the eggs. It would be nice to get that immediate feedback in space." Hullinger said the proposed experiment may use eggs from Japanese quail rather than domesticated chickens because the former is the type of bird the researchers at the Slovak Academy of Sciences have been using for more than a decade. The researchers have had limited but important success in using Japanese quail eggs to study reproduction in space, Hullinger said. The academy's first space flight, in 1979, was unsuccessful because a hard landing damaged the eggs. On the second flight, in 1990, six chicks hatched from the 43 embryos incubated in space, he said. Of the remaining 37, tests showed that only two had developed, even though they did not hatch. In fall 1993, Purdue will be host of a symposium at the West Lafayette campus, with researchers attending from the Center for Avian Microgravity Research. The Slovak researchers are with the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The Commonwealth of Independent States (former Soviet Union) researchers are from the Institute of Biomedical Problems. Professor Karmin Boda of the Slovak Academy of Sciences heads the new Center for Avian Microgravity Research. Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu To the Purdue News and Photos Page