Stem cells from researcher Dhruv Sareen are in the air. What's the purpose of the mission? They want to see if they will grow better in zero gravity.
Scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are trying to find new ways to produce huge batches of a type of stem cell that can generate almost any other type of cell in the body. The cells arrived at the space station on a supply ship.
Sareen said that he wouldn't be able to pay for a ride to space now. A part of me can go up.
Stem cells are being shot into space. The goal is to overcome the difficulty of mass producing the cells. Space travel can affect the cells in the body. Some people help understand diseases.
The executive director of Cedars-Sinai's Regenerative Medicine Institute said that pushing the boundaries is knowledge and science.
His team's study of the effects of microgravity on cell-level heart function was one of six earlier projects from the U.S., China and Italy. There were a number of programs on space-based stem cell research.
It's possible that Earthly applications of this research are a long way off.
The only stem cell-based products approved by the FDA include stem cells from the umbilical cord blood of patients with blood disorders. Jeffrey Millman said there are no approved therapies using the kind of stem cells being sent to space.
Stem cells are being used in clinical trials to treat conditions such as Parkinson's disease. A new approach for treating type 1 diabetes is being researched by Millman.
Stem cells have a lot of promise.
There is a gravity dilemma.
The gravity of the planet makes it difficult to grow large quantities of cells needed for future therapies that may require more than a billion cells per patient.
Even if the FDA approves any of these therapies, we don't have the capacity to make them.
What's the problem? Millman said that the cells need to be stirred vigorously or they will fall to the bottom of the tank. Most cells die when they are stressed.
There is no force on the cells in zero G.
The Cedars-Sinai team is sending stem cells. They are considered the perfect starting materials for all kinds of cell-based treatments. They are similar to stem cells in that they are reprogrammed from adults' skin or blood cells.
For their experiment, which is being funded by NASA, a shoebox-sized container holds bags filled with spheres of cells and all of the pumps and solutions needed to keep them alive. Neural stem cells will be included in the shipment. Stem cells from their own white blood cells were used by the scientists.
The experiment will be done with a box of cells on Earth. The space experiment will be back in five weeks.
The work is intended to lead to more NASA funded research. The impact could be huge if they can figure out how to make billions of cells in space.
There is a high-flying future.
Blood stem cells were sent to the space station by researchers from the University of California, San Diego. They want to find out if low Earth orbit causes cells to age faster and cause problems that lead to pre-cancerous changes. Protection of astronauts' health is one of the goals.
Some of the risks of space travel are being understood by scientists, according to a researcher at NASA.
He said that there are more unknowns in space than knowns. A new type of experiment will shed light on how the body responds to space.
The research should yield more than just new medicines. Living on other planets will be helped by it.
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