NASA introduced a trailblazing experiment that goals to take customized medication to new heights. The experiment is a part of a strategic plan to collect useful scientific knowledge through the Artemis II mission, enabling NASA to “know earlier than we go” again to the lunar floor and on to Mars.
The AVATAR (A Digital Astronaut Tissue Analog Response) investigation will use organ-on-a-chip gadgets, or organ chips, to check the consequences of deep area radiation and microgravity on human well being. The chips will comprise cells from Artemis II astronauts and fly side-by-side with crew on their roughly 10-day journey across the Moon. This analysis, mixed with different research on the well being and efficiency of Artemis II astronauts, will give NASA perception into finest defend astronauts as exploration expands to the floor of the Moon, Mars, and past.
Nicky Fox
Affiliate Administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate
“AVATAR is NASA’s visionary tissue chip experiment that can revolutionize the very means we’ll do science, medication, and human multi-planetary exploration,” stated Nicky Fox, affiliate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Every tissue chip is a tiny pattern uniquely created in order that we are able to look at how the consequences of deep area act on every human explorer earlier than we go to make sure we pack the suitable medical provides tailor-made to every particular person’s wants as we journey again to the Moon, and onward to Mars.”
The investigation is a collaboration between NASA, authorities companies, and trade companions, leveraging industrial experience to achieve a deeper understanding of human biology and illness. This analysis might speed up improvements in customized healthcare, each for astronauts in area and sufferers on Earth.
Organ chips, additionally known as tissue chips or microphysiological techniques, are roughly the dimensions of a USB thumb drive and used to assist perceive — after which predict — how a person may reply to a wide range of stressors, resembling radiation or medical therapies, together with prescribed drugs. Primarily, these small gadgets function “avatars” for human organs.
Organ chips comprise residing human cells which might be grown to mannequin the constructions and capabilities of particular areas in human organs, such because the mind, lungs, coronary heart, pancreas, and liver — they will beat like a coronary heart, breathe like a lung, or metabolize like a liver. Tissue chips may be linked collectively to imitate how organs work together with one another, which is essential for understanding how the entire human physique responds to stressors or therapies.
Researchers and oncologists use human tissue chips at this time to grasp how a selected affected person’s most cancers may react to completely different medicine or radiation therapies. So far, a typical milestone for organs-on-chips has been to maintain human cells wholesome for 30 days. Nonetheless, NASA and different analysis establishments are pushing these boundaries by growing the longevity of organ chips to a minimal of six months in order that scientists can observe ailments and drug therapies over an extended interval.
The Artemis II mission will use organ chips created utilizing blood-forming stem and progenitor cells, which originate within the bone marrow, from Artemis II crew members.
Bone marrow is among the many organs most delicate to radiation publicity and, due to this fact, of central significance to human spaceflight. It additionally performs a significant position within the immune system, as it’s the origin of all grownup pink and white blood cells, which is why researchers purpose to grasp how deep area radiation impacts this organ.
Research have proven that microgravity impacts the event of bone marrow cells. Though the Worldwide Area Station operates in low Earth orbit, which is shielded from most cosmic and photo voltaic radiation by the Earth’s magnetosphere, astronauts typically expertise a lack of bone density. On condition that Artemis II crew will probably be flying past this protecting layer, AVATAR researchers additionally search to grasp how the mixed stressors of deep area radiation and microgravity have an effect on the creating cells.
To make the bone marrow organ chips, Artemis II astronauts will first donate platelets to a neighborhood healthcare system. The cells remaining from their samples will comprise a small share of bone marrow-derived stem and progenitor cells. NASA-funded scientists at Emulate, Inc., which developed the organ chip expertise utilized in AVATAR, will purify these cells with magnetic beads that bind particularly to them. The purified cells will then be positioned within the bone marrow chips subsequent to blood vessel cells and different supporting cells to mannequin the construction and performance of the bone marrow.
Investigating how radiation impacts the bone marrow can present insights into how radiation remedy and different DNA-damaging brokers, resembling chemotherapeutic medicine, impair blood cell formation. Its significance for each spaceflight and medication on Earth makes the bone marrow a perfect organ to check within the Artemis II AVATAR undertaking.
“For NASA, organ chips might present important knowledge for shielding astronaut well being on deep area missions,” stated Lisa Carnell, director of NASA’s Organic and Bodily Sciences division at NASA Headquarters. “As we go farther and keep longer in area, crew can have solely restricted entry to on-site scientific healthcare. Due to this fact, it’ll be important to grasp if there are distinctive and particular healthcare wants of every astronaut, in order that we are able to ship the best provides with them on future missions.”
Throughout the Artemis II mission, the organ chips will probably be secured in a customized payload developed by Area Tango and mounted contained in the capsule through the mission. The battery-powered payload will keep automated environmental management and media supply to the organ chips all through the flight.
Lisa Carnell
Director of NASA’s Organic and Bodily Sciences Division
Upon return, researchers at Emulate will look at how spaceflight affected the bone marrow chips by performing single-cell RNA sequencing, a strong method that measures how hundreds of genes change inside particular person cells. The scientists will evaluate knowledge from the flight samples to measurements of crew cells utilized in a ground-based immunology research occurring concurrently. It will present probably the most detailed take a look at the affect of spaceflight and deep area radiation on creating blood cells up to now.
