05/28/2026
Imagine this: You’re a doctor treating two patients with the exact medical problem. You prescribe the same medication, but each patient responds differently. One improves quickly. The other doesn’t.
Why?
Because each body is unique. Precision health is about understanding how your body – not the “average” person’s – responds to stress, illness, and treatment.
NASA is helping advance personalized medicine by studying how individual cells behave in extreme environments. In deep space, factors like radiation and microgravity reveal differences in our biology that we might not be able to see on Earth.
That’s why NASA’s AVATAR investigation on Artemis II used tiny organ chips made from each astronaut's own cells. When these chips travelled around the Moon, they may not have reacted the same way, even though they were all exposed to identical environments.
This kind of research could help future astronauts get personalized medical kits tailored to their own biology. And the same insight may also help doctors here on Earth give people treatments designed specifically for them.
Explore more: https://go.nasa.gov/4a0HZLN
