Scientists from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have turned to the International Space Station (ISS) in their quest to understand stem-cell based therapies and, more specifically, how to grow large quantities of high-quality adult stem cells.
According to a press release, the scientists are hopeful microgravity conditions on the ISS National Lab and the a three-dimensional view that comes as a result, will help them get a better picture of cell growth, compared to the two-dimensional view on Earth.
"One of the biggest limiting factors in clinical therapies here on Earth is that it's always hard to make enough high-quality stem cells needed for the treatments," Arun Sharma, an assistant professor at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said in the release. "So, if we can leverage microgravity to grow more stem cells than we could on Earth, that could be a huge benefit for patient care."
Researchers will be going to space on Axiom Space's second private astronaut mission (Ax-2) for the out of this world investigation. It's part of a series of experiments sponsored by the ISS National Lab and funded through NASA's In-Space Production Applications program, the release stated.
This experiment will be the first of several experiments aimed at evaluating the process of reprogramming skin cells (fibroblasts) into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) that are capable of producing a variety of tissue cells that could be used in regenerative medicine therapies. The release pointed out potential applications of these stem cells which are diverse and could include disease modeling, therapeutic testing and stem cell-based therapies for a number of age-related conditions. In this study, the research team plans to send both stem cells and skin cells to the space station for a five-day period in order to take a closer look at the rate of cell division and analyze their proliferation using the stem cells.
Sharma said prior stem cell experiments aboard the ISS have shown an improvement in how cells divide in microgravity and a change in their ability to be a stem cell, also known as pluripotency. The Ax-2 mission that will bring these stem cells to the ISS is targeted for launch from the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than May 21 at 5:37 p.m. EDT, the release stated.
