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Last month, a newspaper published a notfrom an experience of unusual origin. This was the study comparing the physiology of astronaut Scott Kelly with that of his identical brother, Earthbound, Mark. While at the International Space Station, Scott collected vast amounts of data about his own health and collected hundreds of stool, urine, and blood samples for later comparison with Mark's.
The results were surprising: thousands of genes remained dormant in Mark were activated in Scott, which also underwent significant modifications of its microbiome, its telomeres, its arteries, its immune system and its performances cognitive. Most of Scott's physiological changes were reversed on his return to Earth, but a few did not. The problem is that to explain what happened to Scott's body in space, researchers need more data. With a sample of a sample, apart from the limited data from previous missions, scientists have little reason to understand why these changes occur. The space being the space, it is difficult to obtain this additional information.
To this end, SpaceX will soon launch a Dragon cargo capsule that will contain, among other things, four chips embedded in living human cells designed to model various aspects of human physiology. The research teams behind these so-called organs on a chip hope to be able to explain how astronauts' bodies react to space travel at the cellular level and accelerate the discovery of new medical treatments on Earth. The launch, which has already been delayed a few times, is currently scheduled at 2:48 ET.
The organs and tissues of a flea reproduce the human physiological function at the cellular level and are designed to make the study of these processes easier than in humans. The chips are transparent and consist of small channels lined with living human cells specific to the modeled organ. Unlike traditional cell cultures, they are also able to mimic certain aspects of the environment and the biomechanical properties of an organ: thrusts and strokes of a beating heart, expanding lungs breathing, pressure of the arteries and heat of the blood passing through them. Since organ and tissue chips are relatively inexpensive and the experimentation is not limited by ethical considerations, researchers can, for example, use them to test new drugs or intentionally infect them for study. appearance of the disease.
A bone marrow tissue chip in space will help researchers understand how the body fights infection.
BIOLINES Laboratory / University of Pennsylvania
In 2016, the National Institutes for Health joined the ISS National Laboratory to launch the tissue chip program in space. The following year, the NIH allocated a total of $ 6 million to five research projects that would study the effects of microgravity on the human body by sending organ and tissue chips to the body. ; ISS. The first payload of the program, which arrived at the ISS last December, contained a few dozen tissue fragments designed to model the human immune system. The next series of tissue chips modeling the kidneys, bones and cartilage, the blood-brain barrier and the lungs are expected to arrive at the space station in the coming days.
Dan Huh is an engineer in biological engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and a senior scientist on the ISS-directed lung tissue chip. This pulmonary chip models the human airways and will be infected by Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a species of bacteria that had already been found on the ISS. On Earth, this bacterium is usually associated with respiratory infections, which are one of the main types of diseases observed during long-term missions to the ISS.
According to Huh, scientists still know very little why the immune response of astronauts seems to be removed in orbit, and the tissue chips are intended to better understand the phenomenon. Recent research has uncovered a number of bacteria on the ISS that have developed antimicrobial resistance. It is therefore increasingly urgent to strengthen the immune system of astronauts. "At this point, our hypothesis is that bacterial cells become more virulent in a microgravity environment," says Huh. "This is an interesting question for the field, but there is not much [data] there, to be honest. "
Understanding the effects of microgravity on health will be critical to maintaining human health during long-term missions in orbit, the Moon or Mars. But how does sending organs on a chip in space help someone on Earth? Lucie Low, head of the scientific program for NIH drug screening chips, says this is a matter of great concern to her. One of the main advantages of studying human physiology in microgravity is speed.
When an astronaut arrives at the International Space Station, their bone density, muscle mass, cardiovascular system and immune system begin to change in a few days. "The physiological changes in astronauts really happen, very fast. So we can model them in microgravity weeks on a fabric chip, but it could take months or years to clinically manifest here on Earth, "says Low. By conducting microgravity tests, researchers can accelerate the drug development process so that new treatments can be used by those who need them, on Earth and in orbit.
In addition to Huh's experiments on respiratory infections, this batch of tissue chips will examine the formation of kidney stones, drugs to stop bone loss and the effects of microgravity on the blood-brain barrier. Four other tissue fragments, intended to study cardiac function, muscle degeneration and immune response in the intestine, are expected to go to the ISS at an indeterminate time in the future. Further down the road, Low says that it's possible that NASA would even want to create an "astronaut on a chip" using individual astronaut cells to study their unique reactions to microgravity before or during long missions.
As in the case of most research conducted in the space, it can be difficult to see how this will benefit the overwhelming majority of people who will never experience a spaceflight. Yet, if NASA's results in the development of space technologies on Earth prove it, in the future, our medicine cabinets could be filled with extraterrestrial remedies.
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