Next summer, researcher Robert Roach will take 24 people from sea level to 17,000 feet in Bolivia for 16 days to study how people acclimatize to hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency.
Roach, director of the Altitude Research Center on the Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, received a $1.5 million grant from the Department of Defense to perform the study, which is seeking to find the basic molecular processes behind acclimatization with the hope of discovering new ways to protect armed-forces personnel from high-altitude illness.
Those selected to participate must be fit, disease-free and not taking prescription medication. The test subjects also are likely to be students who are interested in the project as a whole.
“They need to be tough and determined to make a contribution to science,” Roach said.
The study will lay the groundwork for discovering new treatments for heart and lung disease, as well as helping the military determine who will be adversely affected by altitude, Roach said.
Specifically, the government wants to find ways to quickly overcome acute mountain sickness, which often strikes those serving in Afghanistan.
“Blood and cells determine how we respond to hypoxia,” Roach said. “We’re looking for new pathways we can change with a drug that will let soldiers acclimatize immediately.”
The study is a follow-up to research Roach performed last summer with a $2.5 million Department of Defense grant. His team developed a blood test that identifies with 96 percent accuracy those who will get altitude sickness.
The test was developed in Roach’s lab on the Anschutz campus, where he placed research subjects in a chamber that simulated altitudes of 16,000 feet for 10 hours.
Last year, Roach used the same test on 140 people from Dallas to determine how they would perform at altitude before taking them to Breckenridge.
“We could almost predict it perfectly,” Roach said.
Now, the team is hoping to create a test kit the military can use to identify soldiers likely to get mountain sickness before being deployed to high altitude.
Soldiers identified as being susceptible to acute mountain sickness could be treated with drugs to prevent or reduce symptoms, Roach said.
Margaret Jackson: 303-954-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com
