Please join us for an exciting evening with Dr. Millie Hughes-Fulford, NASA Science Astronaut Payload Specialist who will share stories of her fascinating career with our students and their families. Dr. Hughes-Fulford will speak about her astronaut training, her space flight experience and her work conducting biomedical studies.

About Dr. Hughes-Fulford
Selected as a payload specialist by NASA in January 1983, Dr. Hughes-Fulford flew in June 1991 aboard STS-40 Spacelab Life Sciences (SLS 1), the first Spacelab mission dedicated to biomedical studies. The SLS-1 mission flew over 3.2 million miles in 146 orbits and its crew completed over 18 experiments during a 9-day period bringing back more medical data than any previous NASA flight. Mission duration was 218 hours, 14 minutes and 20 seconds.

Dr. Hughes-Fulford is a Professor at the University of California Medical Center at San Francisco and is a principal Investigator at the San Francisco Department of Veteran's Affairs Medical center where she continues her research. As the Director of the Laboratory for Cell Growth and Scientific Advisor to the Under Secretary of Veteran's Affairs, she studies the control of human prostate cancer growth with VA grants and the regulation of bone and lymphocyte activation with NASA grants. Her current VA and DOD grants examine the use of stem cells to more rapidly replace bone in injuries. She has conducted studies to examine the root causes of osteoporosis that occurs in astronauts during spaceflight, finding changes that occur in microgravity. Presently, she is examining changes in T-cell gene induction in spaceflight in a joint NSASA/ESA International Space Station experiment that flew to the Soyuz in September 2006 to understand medical problems first found in returning Apollo astronauts.
 
The presentation will last approximately 40-45 minutes with time for questions after the talk. 
This event is open to all Mill Valley School District students and their families.
To learn more about the MVSD GATE program please visit www.mvschools.org/gate.htm

Posted by Linda Dunne on February 12