Earlier this week, the Kennedy Space Center launched the 11th SpaceX crew to the International Space Station’s (ISS) orbital laboratory, seeking to advance regenerative medicine.
The four-astronaut crew will produce stem cells in a microgravity environment, study blood vessels in engineered liver tissue, and prepare in-orbit data storage and analytics for scalable expansion in manufacturing capabilities. NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke will respectively serve as mission commander and pilot, while specialists Kimiya Yui (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and Oleg Platonov (Roscosmos) will fill out the crew.
Two sponsored investigations will focus on the production and differentiation of stem cells within a microgravity environment, which is thought to hasten the aging process and quicken cell determination. BioProcess Insider reported on another mission aboard the ISS in June 2024, where microgravity was used to induce and maintain pluripotency in cells.
Researchers from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the University of Colorado aim to determine whether stem cells can be produced faster and in large quantities for application to therapeutics for heart and neurodegenerative diseases.
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine will lead the groundwork for growing transplant organs in space, specifically studying engineered liver tissue that contains blood vessels. The project was initially part of NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge, a $500,000 initiative concluded in 2021 where teams worked to create metabolically functioning human vascularized organ tissue. The research seeks to grow single human cells into fully vascularized organs that can be transplanted into astronauts that need them during long-duration missions.
Crew members will also participate in a pioneering DNA experiment that high school students pitched as part of an ISS initiative to empower young people to get involved with space-station research. New York high schoolers Isabelle Chuang and Julia Gross proposed the experimental design of inciting bacteriophages to attack and kill viruses in space as a means of combatting antibiotic resistance.
Finally, the crew will work to increase orbital data storage with commercial collaborator Red Hat. The partners will leverage the Device Edge platform for real-time analytics of experiments aboard the ISS, important for upscaling manufacturing capabilities in orbiting labs.
BioProcess Insider recently delved into space biotech company Varda, which is using the benefits of microgravity and low-orbit laboratories to produce improved uniformity in crystal morphology for drug formulations.
Although space may be the final frontier, it offers limitless possibilities for biotechnology innovations beyond Earth’s boundaries.