Tissue Chips Sent In Space To Analyze Aging-Related Conditions On Earth
NCATS – Researchers will send four projects into space to rate the study of aging-related conditions and the development of remedies for them. The projects were launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida to reach International Space Station National Lab, contains a miniaturized tissue chip systems that mimic conditions similar to aging on earth and also has few disease states that accelerates in microgravity. This Organ-on-chip projects aim to pace up the R&D of treatments for ailments like kidney stones, arthritis and many more.
Each project is funded through the Tissue Chips in Space initiative, a collaboration among NCATS, NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering and the ISS National Lab. The ISS National Lab and NASA partner to use the U.S. portion of the space station for research.
Tissue Chips
Tissue Chips are tiny bioengineered 3-D models that mimic the structure and function of organ systems, like lungs, kidneys and the heart. Scientists utilize tissue chips to check the effects of medication on these tissues and also to study diseases.
“A high percentage of candidate drugs fail in early testing in part because the models used are ineffective
in predicting what’s going to happen in patients,” explained NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, M.D.”Tissue chips are designed to increase efficiency, lower costs and make better forecasts — and fill a gap in the translation process of turning promising chemicals into approved drugs that can help people.”The unique environment of space is your secret for addressing some present translational science struggles in studying disease. In just a short time period at the gravity of space, astronauts’ bodies experience alterations that are certain. A number of these modifications are similar to those that happen as we get older, including loss of muscles and bones, and immune systems.
“Tissue chips in the area provide a means to simulate various ailments of the aging process. Such models can be hard or require a very long time to develop here in the world but are greatly eased under microgravity, and scientists can use them to develop drugs that can prevent or slow down those ailments,” said Danilo Tagle, Ph.D., associate director for specific initiatives at NCATS. “Taking this tech into the area is an unprecedented opportunity to utilize tissue chips for hastening translational development of interventions for use here on earth to treat many aging-related ailments. Along with the biological effect of the disease models, working together with distance payload developers speeds technological inventions, including automation and miniaturization of their instrumentations that support tissue chip technology.”
Tissue Chips – Space Work Plan
Each tissue chip endeavor will fly into space. The group of tissue chips will stay on the ISS National Lab for about one month prior to returning to Earth. On a mission planned for approximately 18 weeks later, these tissue chips will be used to examine potential drug therapies on the processes observed during the first mission. For example, scientists who use this chip version to analyze osteoarthritis’ accelerated development and the ramifications of an injury plan to utilize the model to test medication and novel compounds on Candida growth.
The projects could allow the use of tissue chips on the floor, Along with notifying the development of new medications and therapies.
“These projects exemplify a transformational acceleration in tissue chip technology that may make systems turn-key and automatic, portable, and available to more researchers and more appealing to businesses, including pharmaceutical companies,” said Lucie Low, Ph.D., scientific program manager of the NCATS Tissue Chips to Drug Screening program, which includes the Tissue Chips in Space program.
In less than two years, the scientific teams and engineers flocked to shrink a room full of laboratory equipment into”plug-and-play” shoebox-sized bundles that may accommodate space constraints, stand the strain of spaceflight and be operated by astronauts and pilots that do not know the research.
This is the second time that NIH-funded tissue chips experiments have flown into space. Late last year, researchers in the University of California, San Francisco(connection is outside ) delivered an experiment into orbit that examined the connection between aging and the immune system.
“Tissue Chips in Space is a remarkably exciting program involving teamwork across scientific disciplines and federal agencies,” said Low,” and I am excited to see it take off.”
Other Tissue Chips projects in the pipeline
The Tissue Chips in Space projects will examine the ability of the tissue processor technologies to mimic how human organs work and reveal what impacts microgravity has on tissue function. Each experimentation, that will have an experiment in normal gravity, will have direct applications to health conditions we encounter on Earth.
Headed into the International Space Station later this month are:
- Lung and bone marrow chips
- Kidney chips
- Chips modeling the blood-brain barrier
- Bone and cartilage chips
