National Women's History Month

Web Cast

Sherri: Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Johnson Space Center here in Houston, Texas. My name is Sherri Jurls and I'm going to be your host today. On behalf of NASA Quest and the Distance Learning Outpost program here at Johnson Space Center, we'd like to welcome you to this very special Web Cast supporting National Women's History Month. And we have a very special guest with us here today. Her name is Tina Bayuse. Welcome, Tina.

Tina: Thank you.

Sherri: Well Tina, you are from Buffalo, New York. And you went to college in Buffalo, New York at New York State University?

Tina: University of Buffalo in New York.

Sherri: Okay, the University of Buffalo at New York. And then you went on to the University of Maryland, Dr. of Pharmacy program.

Tina: Correct.

Sherri: Which is where you got your degree. Well, we are so glad that you are here as a pharmacist working for us at NASA.

Will you spend a few moments and tell everyone out in Worldwide Web land a little bit about how you got here and how you took the career path that you did?

Tina: Sure, I'd be happy to.

I started out like Sherri mentioned, at the University of Buffalo. And I was actually a physics major. And didn't really like it all that much and was working at a pharmacy in my hometown and really liked the idea of being able to help people. So I kind of changed majors and I was going towards a biology degree, and applied to a pharmacy school at the University of Maryland and got in, and graduated in May of 2000 with my Doctor of Pharmacy degree.

Sherri: Wonderful. Well how did you wind up here at NASA?

Tina: That's really a fascinating story, actually. My first year of pharmacy school, I made contact with a person who, name is Dr. Eleanor Rangers who was an alumni from the University of Maryland and she knew some people down here because she had been helping them with some of their medication issues. And we got to talking and a long story short, she helped me set up a rotation for here as a pharmacy student, and then after graduation, I started working down here.

Sherri: Wonderful. Well, have you enjoyed it ever since?

Tina: I have. It's been very exciting. Very exciting.

Sherri: Well, wonderful. We're very glad to have you on staff. Will you take a few minutes and tell us about what it is that you do and the components of your job as a pharmacist here?

Tina: Sure. Actually, I have a presentation for you all to take a look at.

The title of the presentation is A Pharmacist's Role in the Space Program. And currently I'm the pharmacist that's doing this, so it's my point of view.

This particular quote that I have here is from a paper that one of my bosses had written. And it just kind of puts into perspective why this is an important thing. And it reads, "During the first 33 space shuttle missions, crew members took more than 500 individual doses of 31 different medications."

Tina: Now, when you start to think about that within those 33 missions, there's an average of seven crew members. If you do the average between the 500 individual doses, that comes out to roughly about two medications per crew member per mission.

For a 10-day mission, that may seem like much, but for a 10-day mission, that's out of this world so to speak, it can be quite a bit.

So before, who kept track of the medications? Well, the flight surgeons who we call the astronaut doctors and the pharmacology team here at Johnson Space Center. And I work part of my time with that team.

And up until June of 2000, there was not a pharmacist that was working with them and the idea came about because the astronaut core has become about 300 astronauts and then the idea of doing long-duration space flight,

would have much more implication for medication use. So a need was identified and so I was hired.

So there's four different categories that I kind of put toward my job, four big categories. The first being space pharmacy, which I'll go through. Research, dispensing pharmacy and then drug information and education.

In order to understand what space pharmacy is, you kind of need to understand what space medicine is. And that's a special field of medicine that deals with how the body changes as it travels in space. And obviously keeping the crew happy and healthy so that they can do their mission.

For a space pharmacy, obviously, just as in the real world when you go to see your doctor, you go see your pharmacist.

This is sort of a field where you're dealing with the way the drugs interact with those changes in space. So we kind of work hand in hand.

The first part of my job is the clinical part and as I mentioned before, the body has changes, which I have a slide later on that will help us identify those. But what does that mean for medications? Well, that could require dosing adjustments.

What kind of dose that you take here on ground, may be different than what you take in space.

And also how drugs are packaged. They may not be as effective as they would be on Earth, just by the way they're packaged. And I have an example on there is patches. And I'm sure everybody's familiar with those commercials for the smoking patches that people use.

Well, we have similar patches for different drugs and they may not be as effective as they are here on ground, just because it's a patch.

We're still doing research on that, so as with anything that we have with microgravity, it's a constant learning curve.

I wanted to get back to the body adaptations in space. And this is kind of a cute little picture that I had for you all, so that it'll help you follow along here. And the first one is the fluid shift, and I'm sure that everybody's seen those pictures with the astronauts, where their faces look kind of full. And that's because there is a fluid shift that comes from your legs and travels to your head.

This causes the body to have a reaction where it decreases the thirst and also signals the body to say, "Well, I don't want any more fluids, so we have enough food in the body, we don't need to take any more in."

So that all has an affect on how medications react in the body.

The second one on that slide there is stomach and intestines. And we've found through some of the research that we have done in space that your stomach slows down in the way that it works, which means that drugs may not get pushed through the system as well as they would if you were here on the ground.

The third one there is kidneys, and we know that through research, that there is possible changes to the way drugs are filtered. You may or may not be aware that your kidneys play a big part in how your body gets rid of those drugs once you take them. And then the fourth and final one there is immune system.

We're not exactly sure how microgravity affects how you deal with infection of illness or even stress in space. So immune system may play a role in how medications are effective.

The next slide here is just to reiterate what I was saying there with the body changes and how drugs work. With the fluid shift, the amount of water in your body has decreased, so that you may have an effect on the concentrations of drugs.

So, there may be more drug in your system or less drug in your system, and that could mean that you're getting too much drug, or not enough.

Kidney changes there, that again is how quickly drugs are removed from the body.

If for some reason, your kidney's slow down, that again means that you could have more circulating drug in your system.

The third one, stomach and intestines, how quickly the drugs are absorbed.

If your intestines and your stomach are slowed down, the drugs won't get pushed as quickly through and you may have a differentiation between how drugs are absorbed into the system and how they will affect, be affected.

And then the fourth one is liver changes. Your liver is very important in how you metabolize drugs and how they all,

the beginning process of how they become effective. And if the liver isn't functioning properly or the way it does here on the ground, you may have too much drug, which could cause what we call toxicity and that could lead to some problems while the astronauts are in space.

Then there's a practical part of space pharmacy and this is kind of the fun part, I think because I get to pack the medication kits that fly on the shuttle in the station. And pharmacists are really good with this particular area, because we know how medications come in pack, whether it's a tablet,

whether it's an injectable, whether it's a syrup or a patch or a lozenge. Pharmacists through school, learn how all those medications come together.

Pharmacists have the ability to advise the astronauts' doctors and the engineers that design the medical kits, about how drugs are packaged.

The engineers take what I have to say with regard to how something is packaged, and then they can make changes to the medical kit. I'm sure you've seen, you know you take one medication and then you go back for a refill and that refill may look differently. Well, drug companies have a way of repackaging how they formulate medications. So pharmacists have the ability to be able to help those engineers make changes to those kits.

And the third thing is we can explain how medications are used. I'm sure that you all have seen what an inhaler looks like.

There are medications that are packaged quite differently and, as a pharmacist, you can explain to the astronaut doctors and the engineers, how they work and help them better understand it.

And as I said before, we have lots of information that is based on our research. And part of my job is I get to assist in the research that happens here at JSC with the pharmacotherapeutics laboratory. That's a big word. I get to assist in the design and testing of drug products.

You know, what happens in the commercial market may look like a great idea, but it may not be effective, because of the way that it's packaged, for microgravity.

The next bullet there is I serve as a pharmacy expert for clinical studies. And what that means is depending on the study, I may be able to help understand the information that we get from that particular study.

And then the third one there is the stability study, and that's currently one of the big projects that the laboratory is working on, that I get to be a big part of, and it's very fascinating.

Just to give you a quick overview of what that study is, the way the drugs are manufactured here on Earth, the drug companies have a way of putting an expiration date. And you know that if it's past expiration, you're supposed to get rid of it.

Well, we're taking a look at the way drugs, when they come back from flight, what stability looks like for those drugs. Whether or not they're still effective or if we need to alter our expiration dates based on the kind of elements that the drugs are subjected to in flight.

Dispensing pharmacy. This is a new area that I've kind of gotten into here and I work with the Flight Medicine Clinic who are with the doctors and the nurses who see the astronauts on a regular basis, just like a regular doctor's office. And I get to put together their prescriptions that they would need here on the ground. So I get to see them as they come in through the clinic.

and then I get to pack the medical kits for their flight.

And then the fourth and final area is education and outreach. And as a pharmacist, part of the job is to educate people about drugs, whether that be a physician, a doctor, a nurse or even patients.

I'm sure you've seen in your pharmacies in your neighborhood, when you go in to see a pharmacist, the pharmacist will talk to your mom or your dad or maybe even you about how the drug is going to work, and any other incidentals that need to be addressed with that.

The next thing there is I get to counsel the astronauts and their families on their drugs. If for some reason they have any questions, they can contact me.

And then the third bullet there is kind of an interesting one because with the space station, we have an international crew, which means that we could have international drugs.

And the flight surgeons here, the astronaut doctors here on Earth are for the United States side, may have some questions about those international drugs. And I work closely with a Russian doctor to be able to understand what those drugs are and to be able to better prepare the crew surgeons for them.

And the last thing there is I get to coordinate internship programs for pharmacy students. So as a student, when I came through, I got to be a pharmacy student to see what it was all like. Now I get to be the person who teaches those pharmacy students as they come through.

So just to real quickly sum up here, space pharmacy, there's many exciting areas to my job and it changes all the time. And as we learn more through research, there will be more of a demand for continuing research, more clinical space pharmacy and education and outreach.

The thing that's really important to note is that it's just the beginning and there are many more unexplored opportunities in the field of space pharmacy.

Sherri: Well thank you so much, Tina, for sharing the basics of what you do.

And for all of you out there in Worldwide Web land, we want you to take this opportunity while we have Tina here for 45 minutes.

The next 45 minutes, to submit your questions to her, and it will come right to our office here and we will be able to answer those questions for you. And the way you can do that, we are temporarily having technical difficulties. We would normally do that in a chat room. But today we would ask that you send it to the following e-mail address: quest team@hotmail.com. Send your questions in for Tina about pharmacy and pharmacological-related topics here at Johnson Space Center and the Space Program. And Tina will be happy to answer those for you.

And with that we will go take our first question. Tina, Timothy is a 10th grade student and asks, what made you want to be a pharmacist in the first place?

Tina: It kind of happened by accident actually. Like I mentioned before, I was working in a small-town pharmacy as a person that stands behind the register. And I was really fascinated by how the look on people's faces when they would come in to talk to their pharmacist about their medication, and be able to understand what their drugs were supposed to do with them. And I wanted to be able to help people just like that.

Sherri: So you were wanting to help out those of us who might be sick and needing those medications. A noble thing. Okay, Natalie is an 11th-grade student from Texas, the state that we're in and she wants to know how again did you find out specifically about this job at NASA?

Tina: Okay, I was a student at the University of Maryland and had made a friend with an alumni and through e-mail went back and forth about a potential way for me to come down here and do some work. And she knew of my current boss and passed on my e-mail and University of Maryland was very accepting and helped me set up a rotation down here as a student. And I came down here for four weeks in July of 1999 and started on some of these very projects that I talked about a little bit ago. And as I was leaving they said, "Well we would like to see you back here." And a position was created.

Sherri: Great. Thanks. Okay, Susan said she read your bio and wants to know if you still like astronomy and does that hobby help you in any way with your job?

Tina: Well, being here in Houston, I don't have too much of an opportunity to go out and look at the stars based on the background lighting. I don't have a very powerful telescope. So I don't get to do as much as I would like to. I do, whenever I'm at a museum or planetarium, I definitely step in and take a look.

As far as helping my job now, I think having a background or an interest in that area has definitely allowed me to understand some of the nuances of this particular job as far as what space is like. So, yes.

Sherri: Okay, Amber writes in, she's an 8th-grade student and wants to know, being that it's National Women's History Month, is there a famous woman that has every inspired you?

Tina: Well, that's a hard question to answer because there's so many women that have probably inspired me, one being my mother, and of course, my sisters. But Christie [McCauliff] who was the one that was killed in the Challenger accident. I was in sixth grade when Challenger went up and still had all the hopes and aberrations of being an astronaut and knowing that she was from a very different area, she was a teacher, could do what she dreamed. So I guess in a way she kind of inspired me.

Sherri: Well Tina, I would agree with you. Christa inspired many of us, including myself, and I'm sure there are a lot of you out there as well who find that Christa's been a terrific inspiration for us.

Well Connie, thanks for writing in. Connie would like to know where do you see yourself in 5 to 10 years?

Tina: Oh, that's a good question. Hopefully I will still be here doing probably a little bit different job. Where I'm at right now, I'm in-between the lab and the clinic. Although it's a great opportunity, it kind of has its down side, too, because I only get to spend so much time with either group. I would like to have a more interactive role with the astronauts and as we continue on with the long-duration space flight, I think that's a definite possibility.

Sherri: Okay, Melvin. Hi, Melvin, 7th-grade student out there in Worldwide Web land. You're wanting to know from Tina what do you like most about being a pharmacist?

Tina: The idea that I have to use my brain every day and think a little bit differently. There are some issues that come up here that obviously don't come up in the real world, shall we say. And having to sit down and actually think through the process, and it's a very challenging job and I like the fact that it is challenging.

Sherri: Okay, Michael. Michael writes in and he says do you get to mix up any kind of special drugs?

Tina: Actually, the medications that fly on the space shuttle and the International Space Station are made by a different pharmacy off-site because they have the facilities to make those. So I don't get to make any special, or mix up any special medications. But I am involved in packaging them.

Sherri: I don't know about you, but I get this vision of a mad scientist in a laboratory, mixing up some drugs. I don't know, I doubt that's what you were thinking, Michael.

Okay, Jeri writes in and she says do you treat all of the astronauts and their families?

Tina: The clinic that I mentioned before, Flight Medicine Clinic, is responsible for the health care of the astronauts and their families. Whether or not they choose to go to the clinic is obviously their choice. But the astronauts and the families that do come through the clinic, I am their pharmacist. So yes.

Sherri: We've got a 9th-grade student from Oklahoma named William. And he wants to know what kind of research are you working on right now?

Tina: Okay, well we have a couple of different projects that the lab is working on. I mentioned the stability study, which is very important to me because if a drug is not stable or good or going to work, then obviously I don't want that drug to fly and have the potential for an astronaut to take and either get sick or not get better.

There's a couple other projects that we're working on. And one of them I think you saw before, was myself and my supervisor with the laptop. And we are working on what we call pharmaco-dynamic monitor. And that just means the way drugs affect how we react. If you take a drug that makes you sleepy, obviously, things that you do while you're sleeping may not be correct or the right way to do things. So my lab is developing a tool to be able to kind of assess those things while we're in microgravity. Because it's not like you can take somebody's blood and check their levels and have them do a test while they're in microgravity, because they are very busy while they're in flight. Those are probably the two biggest projects.

Sherri: Annie wants to know what was the most difficult part of your training?

Tina: Pharmacy school is a very challenging program to go through and it's very labor-intensive schedule. So I would probably have to say just my second year of pharmacy school at the University of Maryland is very, very intense, and I was working almost 30 hours a week at the same time. So that was probably the toughest part of my training.

Sherri: What kinds of classes make up a pharmacy program?

Tina: Well, each school has their own curriculum, but the University of Maryland, it's a four-year program as I mentioned and you need to have two years of what they call prerequisites. Which means you need to have some background before you can even get into pharmacy school.

And, of course, you have biochemistry and you have medicinal chemistry, all the chemistries. But then they also have microbiology for the antibiotics, therapeutics, which is at Maryland is a year and a half long course where you learn how medications affect disease states. If you have asthma, well, this medication works best for this asthma and why. And it kind of brings the whole picture together.

And then of course, our last year of pharmacy school is devoted towards [rotations], which are kind of on-the-job training for a pharmacist. They are with a pharmacist that is a licensed pharmacist in their field and we get to shadow them for four weeks at a time and learn from them.

Sherri: Okay. What about, you mentioned a lot of sciences. What about math classes? Are there a lot of math classes in pharmacy school?

Tina: Well in pharmacy school at the University of Maryland, we had one particular class it was called pharmaceutical calculations. And all that was was a fancy term for pharmacy math. And that was the only course that we had actually, during pharmacy school that was devoted towards math. Of course, each major science course has math attached to it, so there is math involved. But most of your math comes from your prerequisites.

Sherri: For those of you just joining us, we are broadcasting live from the Johnson Space Center, NASA, here in Houston, Texas. We are supporting a National Women's History Month.

This is a Web Cast for that and we have a very special guest pharmacist, Tina Bayuse with us today. And she is answering your questions.

And under normal circumstances, we would use a chat room to take your questions in, but we're having some technical difficulties. So if you're watching today and you want Tina to answer whatever your questions might be, submit them to the following e-mail address: quest team@hotmail.com.

Okay, our next question comes from Marsha who is an 11th-grade student and she wants to know did you ever find it being difficult being a woman in this career field?

Tina: Actually, in pharmacy, there is a huge majority of women who are in pharmacy school and are pharmacists now. Though as far as being a pharmacist and being a woman, I don't see that being a problem at all. When I was in my physics program I thought it was a problem, but like I said, I got out of physics and went into biology and pharmacy. But as a pharmacist, I don't see that as a problem actually, I see it as a benefit.

Sherri: Kati says she read your bio. Thanks Kati for boning up before joining us today. She wants to know what kinds of medicines do the astronauts usually take with them up into space?

Tina: Well there's actually two, or for the space shuttle, there is an entire medical kit that the astronauts' doctors and some consultants have decided what needed to be put into that kit. And they range from analgesics or pain relievers to a nasal decongestant like Sudafed, antibiotics in case something happens. And then if for some reason somebody was severely ill, they have the capability of doing some CPR kinds of medications.

But that's already predetermined by the astronaut doctors and some consultants and it's a pretty fairly sized kit and it's way too big to put on this table.

Sherri: What about on the space station? Is it the same sized kit or even larger because the astronauts are up there for even longer periods of time?

Tina: It's actually even larger.

They have, I think it's a set of three kits and each kit has, it's a different group of medications. And they also have special kinds of equipment in there. The medication kits don't always just include medications. They include bandages and things that they would need to be able to carry out their treatment.

Sherri: Victor is an 8th-grade student who says, "What's the difference between what a pharmacist does and pharmacology?"

Tina: That's a good question. Pharmacology is a small part of pharmacy. Pharmacology is the study of how drugs work with, at like a molecular level and that's a big word there. But pharmacology, like I mentioned, is a small part of pharmacy, whereas pharmacy takes into the big picture how drugs are packaged, how they're manufactured, how drugs work with individual people and the therapy of it.

So to be in pharmacy school, you have a semester or two of pharmacology, whereas if you are a pharmacologist, you would focus on that particular area and get into the more specialized areas of pharmacology.

Sherri: Well T.C. High School, we want to thank you for joining us today. We've received a lot of your questions and we'll go ahead and take the first one from you from Bridgett. Tina, Bridgett wants to know how has your job changed over the years?

Tina: Well Bridgett, I've only been here about two years, although it has changed in the last six months even. And I mentioned that before in my presentation. I started taking on the dispensing pharmacy in the clinic, which has allowed me more visibility with the astronauts. So they had heard of me before, but they know of me now.

Sherri: Okay. Well that's good, and we know of you now too. Okay, Sam is also at T.C. High School and he says, "When making medical kits for the astronauts, do you throw in extra things just in case like the antibiotics or pain pills that we were talking about earlier? And what other kinds of extra things do you just throw in?"

Tina: Well we don't really throw anything in. The engineers have a very strict, what they call drawing, to go by. And we have very hefty space requirements, meaning we only have so much of a locker to be able to put a medical kit in. With that space constraint, we also have a weight constraint. You can't start adding stuff in because it's going to weigh more. The kit will weigh more and they have everything mathematically figured out as to how much we're allowed to have. So we just don't throw anything in.

Sherri: Okay, Laurie is also from T.C. High School and she says, "Since the astronauts can't take cough syrup in space, are special lozenges made from the cough syrup instead?"

Tina: We actually do fly cough lozenges and it's similar to what a Robitussin would be. So yes, they're not specially made for us, they are commercially available. But we do fly cough lozenges, yes.

Sherri: L.C. Junior High School, thank you for joining us. We have received some of your questions as well and we'll take the first one from Ricky. He wants to know what kinds of medicines specifically react differently on our bodies in space than they do here on Earth?

Tina: That's actually a very fascinating question because we're still in the learning stages of how medications are affected by microgravity. And it's too soon really to tell what specific medications do, are affected. And usually the key for us is if somebody isn't reacting the way they should be reacting, that's when we go back and do some research on it. So it's really too soon to make many finalized conclusions about what medications have problems with microgravity.

Sherri: Well Tina, Ricky has a second part to his question. He wants to know if there are any medicines designed just for use in space?

Tina: Medications are not designed just for use in space, but how they're packaged might be. We try to make sure that the medications that we have are as simple for the astronauts to use as possible. If they need to do an injectable, we don't want them to have to put a syringe together. We don't want them to have to put a needle on and then draw up, push, pull into the syringe their medications. We want that already prepared for them.

So we have made special arrangements with that pharmacy that I mentioned before that helps us get the drugs together for the medical kits to be able to make sure that it's kind of a one-step kind of thing where they pull it out of the kit and they do what they have to do.

Sherri: Kelly wants to know do you research drugs that will counteract the effects of microgravity?

Tina: NASA has a program where it's called Countermeasures Development, and part of countermeasures is also the medications that may be able to. We are, and I say we as NASA at Johnson Space Center as a whole, are there's a whole group of people that are working on very different areas that could cause problems for the astronauts with long-duration space flight. And they work sometimes it's with medications and sometimes it's not.

So yes, they're doing research regarding helping combat those issues that happen while they're in space.

Sherri: Okay Pam, you're also from T.C. High School. Going to take your question. Pam wants to know what advice would you give girls today to help us succeed?

Tina: Well my dad always told me that you could do whatever your heart set out to do. He says, if you work hard, you can usually accomplish your goals and I'm living testament to that. So, I would say just work hard. If you run into a stumbling block, don't give up, just pat yourself off and start over. And you might have to think about it a little bit differently, but there are ways you can achieve your goals.

I like that old adage of if you fall off the horse, you get up and start riding again.

Sherri: Get back on, right, exactly. Okay, Didi, thanks for writing in for your question. She wants to know who are your all-time three favorite women? That's a tough one, isn't it?

Tina: That's a very hard question. My all-time favorite women are people that are very close to me. My mom and of course my two sisters, I kind of count those as one person, because they would get mad at me if I said one was better than the other. And then one of my best friends from pharmacy school.

Sherri: Great. Can you tell us why you admire them so much?

Tina: They're all very strong women and usually accomplish what they set out to do.

Sherri: So excellent role models for not only you but for any of us, right?

Tina: Right.

Sherri: Okay great. Well thanks, mom, sisters and best friend out there. You're an inspiration.

Okay Yasmin. She says, "Do you think opportunities for girls and women have improved much in the last 10 years?"

Tina: I would say they have. Just by being able to be doing what I'm doing here, I would say that's a huge accomplishment. NASA used to have this whole joke where it was the good old boys kind of thing where everybody was men. And now I think the average is pretty equal. So I say I think things are going very well.

Sherri: I think I have to agree with you, Tina, too. Okay, James. Do you research vitamin and mineral supplements to be used by the astronauts, maybe like in one little pill where they won't need to take food?

Tina: Well, I don't know if that kind of research is going on. I do know that with the huge onslaught of herbal medications that are out there now, we're very interested in making sure that if the astronauts do decide to take them, we know how they're going to be affected, what drugs they could interact with, so that if they do need something out of the medical kit, they're not going to harm themselves by taking the two that could interact. And there is a nutrition lab here at NASA that is very interested in educating the astronauts about that.

Sherri: Well speaking of the nutrition lab Tina, we just recently did one of these Web Casts with a nutritionist and we have archived that Web Cast on the Quest Web page. So if you are interested in learning more about the nutrition aspects, go watch the archived, using Real Player, just as you are watching our program today.

Ginger is a 6th-grade student. Hi, Ginger. And she wants to know would you still like to be an astronaut if you could?

Tina: That's a big yes. I don't know of anybody that gets this far and doesn't still want to do it. If I ever have the opportunity, I'm going to take it.

Sherri: So you have lots of opportunities ahead of you. Okay, Mr. Davis, hey there Mr. Davis, from T.C. High School.

You guys are sending in lots of questions today. We're very glad to be receiving them. He wants to know what is one of your best memories or the most exciting project or research you've worked on in your career so far?

Tina: Well it's going to sound kind of crazy, but being able to see the astronauts and helping them understand their medications is probably the biggest thrill for me as far as the clinical pharmacy is concerned. As far as the research is concerned, I have a very big vested interest in the stability study that our lab is working on. Because I see that it could not only have an impact here for the space program, but it could impact how we utilize expiration dates here on the ground.

Sherri: Well, we only have about 20 minutes left, so we want to encourage those of you watching today who have any questions to submit them so Tina can spend her time answering them for you. That is what we are here for today. And the way you will do that is at the e-mail address quest team@hotmail.com. You can see that listed here on your screen. We would normally do that in a chat room, but unfortunately due to technical difficulties, it is down today. So please bear with us. Send your questions in to quest team@hotmail.com.

Hey, Jacki wants to know, are you the only pharmacist at NASA?

Tina: I currently am the only pharmacist that does what I'm doing. There is another pharmacist that works here at NASA but he deals with all of the budgets for NASA. So he doesn't really get to interact at all with the astronauts or their medications or the projects that I'm working in at all.

Sherri: Okay, Justin's a 6th-grade student, not sure from where. But he says, "What math and science classes did you take specifically and were there any that you didn't take that you wish you would have that might have helped you out?"

Tina: I don't think there's any math classes that I didn't take that I would have taken. But as far as math that I took while in school, I was in Calculus because I was a Physics major. And of course I did all the pre-Calculus to get to the Calculus, and of course as I mentioned before, the pharmacy math that I took while I was in pharmacy school.

Sherri: All right, 6th-grade student named Shannon. Hi there, Shannon. She wants to know if they're ever going to be able to do surgery in space like for an emergency and like would they use IVs and those types of things?

Tina: There is a big push now for what they call tele-medicine, meaning that there is a surgeon or somebody at one location with a telemonitor and at another location they have a person carrying out the actual act. And that is a possibility. I think we're a couple of years away from actually doing that with the way things we do here. But as far as IVs and all that, we do have the capability, a very small capability, because we don't have a lot of the space that we should have to be able to have an IV in case someone got ill.

Sherri: Well, it's really fascinating learning how you guys would handle these types of emergencies if they came up. Now speaking of emergencies, Kyle wants to know what would happen if an astronaut had an allergic reaction to something, whether it be a food or one of the drugs that they're taking while they were up in space? Do you send medicines just for this just in case, or how do you prepare for that?

Tina: I'm not involved in the astronaut training, so I'm not exactly sure what they are taught, but we do have something in the medical kit that could treat them, much like if you got a bee stung and you were allergic to bee stings, how you would be treated in an emergency situation. We do have the capability for that, yes.

Sherri: Wesley has a great question that I'd like to ask you as well. If you could research anything that you wanted to in pharmacy, what would you want to research?

Tina: Wow, that's a tough question. I really enjoy the stuff that we're doing right now and it's hard to know what kind of research to do in the future because things change so quickly. I would have to say that the stability study, again, is very important to be able to know what's going on and then possibly for future research, having a way to be able to measure how drugs are being, or are affecting the astronauts as they're up there.

Going back to if they're sleepy, we obviously don't want them to be going off to doing EVA and stuff.

Sherri: And what's EVA?

Tina: An extravehicular activity, sorry.

Sherri: And what is an extravehicular activity?

Tina: It's an opportunity for the astronauts to go outside of the shuttle and, or the station, actually, and like this last particular mission with the Hubbell, they got to do a couple of space walks and repair the Hubbell telescope.

Sherri: So it's a fancy word for space walk?

Tina: Exactly.

Sherri: Okay. I know we use a lot of acronyms here at NASA and sometimes we think that the whole rest of the world should know all those acronyms as well. So we just try to clarify them for you when we can.

Tina: Right.

Sherri: Okay so those were some really interesting research things that you're working on now that if you could, you'd be working on anyway. So that's really neat. Okay, Annie wants to know what other types of rotations, if any, did you do while you were in college?

Tina: I actually did a bunch of rotations. I worked in pediatrics. I did a couple of pediatric rotations and I really, really liked that and actually I was planning on going into that particular area right before I got the call and was told that an opportunity came up here. So pediatrics was an area.

You can actually do a rotation, depending on the school that you go to, in very different areas. Pediatrics, oncology, which is cancer.

Geriatrics, which is old and elderly persons area of medicine, pharmacy management, let's see what else is there? Regular retail pharmacy where you're at a community drug store and you're counting pills that way.

Hospital pharmacy, and I actually did a rotation where I did something with Indian health service and I got to work in New Mexico for a month with the American Indians that were out there and deal with their care.

So, depending on the school that you go to, there are many, many opportunities. As a matter of fact, as I was going through school, I actually started with the intention of going into hospital pharmacy and being a pharmacist at the hospital and dealing with people that were sick.

And as I went through school, and the more rotations that I did, I got more and more confused and I was changing my idea of what I wanted to do when I grew up every month.

So there are many opportunities for rotations.

Sherri: Okay, well speaking of rotations, NASA has a co-op program for college students and if you want to read more about how to come here while you're attending college, and do a co-op, a work rotation, you can visit the education Web site here at Johnson Space Center. And that's education.jsc.nasa.gov. It's listed on your screen for you there. Please note, there is no www in front of that. And you can check out programs for high school students and elementary school students, as well as programs for college students. And that's where you'll find the co-op program information for you.

Okay, we have about 15, a little, actually 13-14 minutes left. Seize this time to submit your questions to Tina. We are reading them fast and furious trying to answer everyone's questions. The e-mail address that you could submit your question is quest team@hotmail.com.

Okay Nancy, she wants to know, have you ever thought about going back to school?

Tina: Having come out of school about two years ago, not exactly. I did about eight years of college after high school, and right now I'm not interested in going back to school. I have toyed with the idea of going to medical school, but not now. I love what I'm doing too much.

Sherri: Okay, great. Well, Ellen wants to know have you ever tested medicines on the KC-135 and you might tell everyone what the KC-135 is.

Tina: Okay. Well, for starters, the KC-135 is what we affectionately call the vomit comet and that's the airplane that will fly and do parabolas to be able to simulate weightlessness.

And I think we have a picture of it for you here, right there. There's the plane going up in the air and then when it starts to come to the peak of that and starts to drop down, or what we call dive, that you get 30 seconds of weightlessness there for you.

I have not had the opportunity to fly on the KC-135 as of yet. I've been real busy doing what I've been doing, but I have an opportunity that may come up in the future to be able to test drugs as they come up. So I'm looking forward to being able to do that, yes.

Sherri: Great. To you knowledge, have any other-, has anyone else tested any of these drugs on the KC-135?

Tina: A while back, the pharmacist that I mentioned, who now does all the budgets for NASA, in that particular branch, has, used to fly on the KC and test inhalers; the medications that you use for asthma. So they have tested medications.

I know at one point they were testing IV bags and how those would handle in microgravity. So yes, they do look at medical equipment.

Sherri: Okay. Abe, he wants to know, are there any medications that are not allowed to fly in space because they're too dangerous or for any other reasons?

Tina: I'm sure there probably are, and because I'm so new to the system, I wasn't involved in only those meetings. Because we have a medical kit that has been set and they probably used for the last 30 years, they've updated it every so often based on what new comes out and what works best for what they think could happen. But I don't see that, I don't see a list of things that cannot be flown. But at the same time, there's probably a mental list of things that can't be flown that I'm not aware of.

Sherri: Okay, I read on your bio where you wrote a letter to NASA that you wanted to be the first kid to be flown up in space.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Tina: Yeah, I think I might have been in 3rd grade when this happened and I sent a letter to-, I don't even know who; somebody at NASA, and said that I would be willing to be the first kid into space. And I actually got a letter back and said that they weren't interested in that particular idea at the time, but they were looking for a teacher in space.

Sherri: Now we know they're starting to send civilians into space.

Tina: Correct.

Sherri: So you could have been breaking new ground then.

Okay, we've got some more questions coming in, so we will go to those. Troy wants to know do the astronauts have to continue to be checked out even after they don't fly anymore, like years later?

Tina: That's usually up to the individual astronaut. The Flight Medicine Clinic does see what we call retired astronauts. And usually they continue to come with us, just because they're comfortable with the clinic and the doctors and the doctors know their medical history. So yes, we do see the retired astronauts.

Sherri: Okay, well speaking of retired astronauts and continuing to check up on them over time, Johnny writes in and wants to know if you happen to know anything about the results from the John Glenn mission on STS-95 about osteoporosis?

Tina: Unfortunately, I haven't been involved in the entire John Glenn group of people that worked with him. So unfortunately, I don't have any information for you about that.

Sherri: Okay, well as we all know,

John Glenn, one of our nation's favorite astronauts and here he is in our food laboratory out here at NASA Johnson Space Center doing some taste testing, looks like of a beverage there, either giving us his thumb's up or thumb's down. I know he said that when he came back and did his second flight with us, or the later flight in STS-95, that the food, the quality and taste of the food had increased tremendously.

So I guess we're making headway in that area.

Okay, Rebecca wants to know if you're working on any research specifically on the ISS right now?

Tina: The only research that currently the lab is working with right now is the stability study. And the reason for that is because there's only a certain number of crew obviously in the station right now, and the research that has been done so far in the station, has been booked for years ahead of time. So with the stability study, we're not asking any of the astronauts to do anything, we're just flying the kit and when it comes back, we take out the medications that we're interested in studying. So there's absolutely no time involvement for them.

In the future, I know the lab would like to work with the station crews, but it's just all a matter of time.

Sherri: Okay, Cecily has a question I'm sure many of us out there would want to ask. She wants to know if you can be accepted into the astronaut program if you are already taking different medications on a regular basis?

Tina: That's a good question. But I'm not exactly the person to answer that. It would probably depend on the medications and what reasons you were taking those medications were. So, the best thing I can say to you is write a letter, I'm sure there's a Web site out there that has the application online and download that and take a look at it and the people that are in the area that do the astronaut candidacy program, can better explain those answers to you.

Sherri: Okay, well for those of you who might be interested in becoming an astronaut one day, and we'll even answer part of Cecily's question here, you can visit the spaceflight.nasa.gov Web site. That's the official Web site for the Human Space Flight Program. Again, please note, there is no www in front of that. And you can go on this Web site and see how to become an astronaut. The kinds of qualifications that are required, a four-year college degree is a given, of course, in the math or sciences.

The type of physical condition you have to be in, you can actually print out a copy of the application that an astronaut candidate would fill out, to see what kinds of things you need to be planning for.

This is it. This is what the Web page looks like. How do you become an astronaut? This is on spaceflight.nasa.gov. And you can read all about all of the particulars that you ever wanted to know. The kinds of training that you'll have to go through, the application process, how often we hire astronauts. Typically every couple of years.

Here's the application process. You can download the application form itself in a variety of formats like Microsoft Word, for those of you who have Microsoft products and so on and so forth.

But lots of folks out there I know probably have big dreams just like you did Tina, and I did myself, too. Unfortunately my eyesight was so bad, it was kind of shattered my dreams a bit, finding out in high school that I would never qualify because my eyesight was so bad.

But you can read all about those sorts of things. Now you mentioned that you wanted to become an astronaut. What kept you from that dream?

Tina: I found out, I actually went to the United States Space Academy when I was in high school, a summer before my senior year, and they have all kinds of speakers that come in and talk to the, what we call cadets. And so I asked the question, I have a preexisting medical condition. I have what we call hypothyroidism, meaning my thyroid doesn't work very well, and I take medication for it every day.

And at the time, the astronaut told me, well, there's very strict rules as to who and what you can take. So he said that your chances would probably not be that great. And I decided right then that it's probably not the best idea to go through the application process. Not that I'd be wasting any time to be going through the application process, but I didn't want to try something and have something completely slip away.

However, now, I think they're kind of changing the way they view preexisting medical conditions. So, like I was mentioning before, to check out the Web site and see what they say.

Sherri: For those viewers watching us today who are interested in a career on pharmacology, what kinds of skills would you say are important for them to start developing and thinking about analytical skills, math skills, all those sorts of things.

Tina: Okay, well pharmacology is a little different than pharmacy.

Sherri: Okay.

Tina: For the pharmacology interest out there, definitely science-related, math and chemistry and probably even biochemistry and biology are big things. For pharmacy, I'd say you probably need to have a big interest in people. Part of a pharmacist's job is to be able to talk to people and explain to them in many different ways, how the drugs are going to work for them. If they don't understand it one way, you should be able to reverse your thinking and try and explain it another way, so that you can help them understand it.

90% of people getting better is having them understand their medications and being able to use them properly and making sure that they are compliant or that they take their medications. So, as far as an extra skill for pharmacy, I'd have to say you probably need to be a good communicator, good writing skills, speaking skills and, of course, the math and the science that you need to be able to get through pharmacy school.

Sherri: All right, Tina, well we're about out of time. Do you have any closing words of advice for our viewers out there in Worldwide Web land?

Tina: Well, in my bio I said that at [inaudible] that kind of epitomizes what I try and say myself every morning and that's dream to touch the stars and live to touch your dreams. That doesn't mean that you have to attain your dream, but at least working towards it gives you something to look forward to every morning, and it's exactly what I get to do.

Sherri: All right, well we want to thank you so much for spending this time with us here today answering all of these questions.

We've done our very best to get through as many of your questions as we could. I hope yours were the ones we were able to answer.

If you are interested in some of the details that Tina spoke about earlier, this Web Cast will be archived at a later date, you can come back to the Web site if you need to take some extra good notes or want to review something that you missed earlier. And we do, again, appreciate the time you spent with us. On behalf of the Distance Learning Outpost at Johnson Space Center, and NASA-Ames Quest, we thank you for participating today and we look forward to you joining us next time, Tina. Thank you.

Tina: Thank you for having me.

Sherri: Okay. Bye-bye from Johnson Space Center.

Tina: Bye.