Do stem cells grow better in space? Dhruv Sareen’s own stem cells orbiting Earth on the International Space Station

Researcher Dhruv Sareen’s stem cells are currently orbiting the Earth. Mission? To test if they grow better in zero gravity.

Scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are trying to find new ways to produce a giant batch of stem cells that can give rise to nearly any other type of cell in the body. – and has the potential to be used to treat many diseases. Over the weekend, cells arrived at the International Space Station on a resupply ship.

Sareen said: “I don’t think I can pay any price now to take a private ride to space.” At least part of me in the cells could go up! “

This experiment is the latest research project involving shooting stem cells into space. Some, like this one, aim to overcome the terrestrial difficulty of mass-producing cells. Others explore how space travel affects cells in the body. And some help better understand diseases like cancer.

“By pushing boundaries like this, it’s knowledge, it’s science and it’s learning,” said Clive Svendsen, executive director of Cedars-Sinai’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Joseph Wu of Stanford University, who directs the Stanford Heart Institute, said that six previous projects from the US, China and Italy sent different types of stem cells – including his team’s study on The impact of microgravity on cardiac function at the cellular level. Wu helped coordinate a series of programs on stem cell research in space last year.

The world applications of much of this research may be a bit off.

At this time, the only stem cell-based products approved by the Food and Drug Administration containing hematopoietic stem cells from cord blood for patients with blood disorders such as some lymphoma. Jeffrey Millman, a biomedical engineering expert at Washington University in St.

But clinical trials are underway involving stem cells that target conditions like macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease and heart attack damage. And Millman is involved in research that could lead to a new approach to treating type 1 diabetes.

Scientists see great promise in stem cells.

DILEMMA GRAVITY

That promise is tempered by a nasty problem on Earth: The planet’s gravity makes growing the large numbers of cells needed for future therapies could require more than a billion per year. patient.

“With current technology, even if the FDA immediately approved any of these therapies, we wouldn’t be able to produce” what was needed, says Millman.

Problem? In large bioreactors, cells need to be stirred vigorously or they will clump or fall to the bottom of the tank, Millman said. Stress can cause most cells to die.

“In non-G, there is no force acting on the cells, so they can grow in a different way,” says Svendsen.

The Cedars-Sinai team sent out what are known as induced pluripotent stem cells. Many scientists consider them the perfect starting material for all kinds of personalized cell-based treatments. They carry the patient’s own DNA and their versatility makes them similar to embryonic stem cells, only they are reprogrammed from adult skin or blood cells.

For their experiment, which is being funded by NASA, a shoebox-sized container contains bags filled with globular cells and all the pumps and solutions needed to keep them alive for four weeks. Merchandise will also include Svendsen-derived neural stem cells. The scientists used stem cells taken from their own white blood cells because they readily agreed.

They will run remote tests with a box of cells on Earth for comparison. They’ll get the space experiment back in five weeks or so, when it’s back in the same SpaceX capsule.

The work is designed to pave the way for more NASA-funded research. If they can figure out how to get billions of cells in orbit, Svendsen says, “the impact could be huge.”

FUTURE FLYING HIGH

In the same cargo launch, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, sent blood stem cells to the space station, repeating an experiment they performed last year. They wanted to find out if low Earth orbit causes faster aging in cells, leading to problems that set the stage for precancerous changes. One goal is to protect the health of astronauts.

Afshin Beheshti, a researcher at NASA’s Ames Research Center, said scientists are just beginning to understand some of the risks of space travel.

“There are more unknowns in space than there are unknowns,” he said.

Ultimately, says Beheshti, research will yield more benefits than mundane, practical solutions like new drugs. It will also help with far-fetched human aspirations, like living on other planets.