Studying the final frontier

By Lethbridge Herald on September 11, 2025.

Nathan Reiter
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The University of Lethbridge just received an out of this world research grant. Literally.

The Canadian Space Agency contributed a $225,000 grant to the university. The grant was announced recently by Melanie Joly, the Minister of Industry and responsible for Canada Economic Development for Quebec regions. The grant is part of $2.8 million contributed in research grants to 14 Canadian post-secondary institutions.

Dr. Gerlinde Metz, a neuroscientist at the University of Lethbridge’s Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, along with a team of researchers, will look to gain a better understanding of how the human body adapts to life in space.

In an interview with the Herald, Metz says she’s done similar studies in the past. 

“The project stems from long-term collaborations we were having with NASA. We had prepared several grant applications in the U.S. NASA is not able to send money outside of their country, so we wanted to create an application to the Canadian Space Agency so that we are able to also obtain some funding to support the work of our Canadian team that is part of this larger project.”

Metz and her team had previously done research showing that space travel resulted in sex-specific changes to metabolites involved in energy metabolism, which could be linked to bone loss, muscle regulation and immunity dysfunction. 

Metz says the research could find some protective factors and ways to counteract the negative effects of spaceflight.

“The project is actually NASA’s largest astronaut study that incorporates data collected over the past 12 years, or even longer from astronauts that spend prolonged periods of time on the International Space Station. We’re really motivated to be part of this initiative as the only Canadian partner. We wanted to contribute our expertise by pursuing a metabolomic study. That means we’re studying small molecules called metabolites in samples that were obtained before the space flight, during the space flight at various time points and after the space flight to see how the human body adapts to this extreme experience of going into outer space.”

The study is part of NASA’s first comprehensive multi-level analysis of the world’s largest existing group of astronauts. Metz says it’s special to be part of such a large collective study.

“This is part of a larger collaborative effort. It will hopefully last a very long time because of this very exciting and very important research we’re doing that will help us to better understand the mechanisms of biological aging. In terms of the Canadian Space Agency funding, this is supposed to cover the work we are doing for three years. After that, we’re hoping to be able to attract other funding to maintain the momentum of this very important study.”