Going to Space to Advance Regenerative Medicine on the Ground (2024)

January 25, 2019 • By Amelia Williamson Smith, Staff Writer

Microgravity has profound effects on the human body and on cells within the body, and insights gained from research conducted onboard the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab are helping to advance the field of regenerative medicine back on Earth. In recognition of its leadership in enabling valuable stem cell and regenerative medicine research, the ISS National Lab was presented with a Leadership Award from the Regenerative Medicine Foundationat the 14^th annual World Stem Cell Summitthis week.

The unique environment of the ISS National Lab allows researchers to study cells in ways not possible on the ground. Microgravity affects the way cells aggregate, allowing them to form into three-dimensional structures that more closely resemble tissues in the human body—providing improved models to study cell behavior and test drugs and accelerating advances in tissue engineering.

Microgravity may also enhance some properties of stem cells, such as their ability to survive, proliferate (increase in number), form 3D aggregates, and differentiate (develop from general-purpose cells into specialized cells)—which could provide significant benefits in advancing personalized medicine and developing stem cell-based regenerative therapies.

Tissue chips, small chips containing cells grown on an artificial scaffold to model the detailed physical structure of human tissue, have the potential to revolutionize medicine and are now being leveraged on the ISS National Lab to enable improveddisease modeling and higher-accuracy testing of potential new drugs.

Soon, scientists may be able to manufacture human organs and tissues on the ISS National Lab for use back on Earth using the 3D BioFabrication Facility, which is being developed by Techshot and is scheduled for launch on SpaceX’s 18^th commercial resupply services mission.

ISS National Lab-sponsored requests for proposals have provided grants that support use of the space station to advancestem cell and tissue chip research.In addition, the ISS National Lab has collaborated with the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering—both part of the National Institutes of Health—to supporttissue chip research on the ISS National Labcentered on human physiology and disease.The ISS National Lab has also partnered with the National Science Foundation to supporttransformative tissue engineering researchon the ISS.