CHOICE KERGUELEN 1: Consequences of Longterm Confinement on Immunity in the Sub-Antarctic Islands: Inclusion of Volunteers Before Departure to the Kerguelen Islands

Living for long periods in extreme environments-like Antarctic research stations or space missions-can have a significant impact on human health, especially on the immune system. Scientists have observed that people in such isolated conditions often experience more infections and a reactivation of viruses that usually stay dormant in the body, such as Herpes viruses. These changes affect both parts of the immune system: the rapid-response "innate" system and the slower, more specific "adaptive" system.

These immune disruptions may be caused by multiple stressors: ongoing psychological stress, disturbed sleep and light cycles (circadian rhythm disruption), and the challenges of living in confined, isolated, and extreme environments. While space missions and Antarctic overwintering programs have provided some insight into these issues, scientists still lack a detailed understanding of how the immune system adapts-or fails to adapt-over time in such conditions.

To help fill this gap, the CHOICE Kerguelen 1 study will recrut a group of healthy young adults who will spend one year (from November 2025 to November 2026) in Port-aux-Français, a remote French research station on the Kerguelen Islands in the sub-Antarctic. These volunteers are participating in a civic service program and will be living in a highly isolated environment for the duration of their mission. The CHOICE Kerguelen 1 study is conducted in collaboration with the French Polar Institute (IPEV).The goal of the study is to collect and store a broad range of biological samples-including blood, saliva, stool, urine, and hair-from these volunteers before they leave for the island, to have baseline medical state and baseline biological samples. These samples will integrate in to healthy volunteer biobank of CHU Angers, a type of biological archive that provided control samples for CHOICE Kerguelen 2 - a clinical study relating to follow-up of volunteers during civic service on the Kerguelen Islands