Astronauts breathed into the devicee in the reduced pressure of an airlock to simulate conditions in future habitats on the Moon or Mars . Lead investigator Lars Karlsson of Sweden ’ s Karolinska Institute hopes that the experiment opens new fields of research in reduced pressure in space . Exhaled nitric oxide measurements also could be used to identify the most effective molecules for use in drugs to treat inflamed airways and lungs .
“ One group of experiments that I enjoy most are those where we investigate our own human systemss to help people with illnesses on Earth ,” says ESA astronaut Alex
Gerst , who participated in the Airway
Monitoring investigation . “ It ’ s another example of how we need to fly to space to help people down here .”
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Toward better cancer treatments
Cancer is a leading cause of death in the United States , accounting for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year
. The International Space Station National Laboratory is advancing cancer research through studies that cultivate stem cells for possible therapeutic applications , crystallize proteins for improved drug discovery and delivery , and test therapies to find those that work better or have fewer side effects . Other projects seek to improve 3D cell culturing for more accurate drug testing that could reduce the failure rate of current drug discovery efforts .
Angiex , Inc ., of Cambridge , Massachusetts , developed a treatment targeting the blood supply of tumor cells , which kills cancer cells by depriving them of oxygen and nutrients . The company ’ s Angiex Cancer Therapy investigation took advantage of the space station ’ s microgravity environment to culture endothelial cells , whichh line the walls of blood vessels , to see whether they might provide a valid model to help develop safer and more cost-effective cancer treatments.
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: Cancer Therapy in Space
“ When scientists try to grow endothelial cells on the ground , they don ’ t live for very long. One of the things we tested on orbit is whether the cells grow better in space ,” says NASA astronaut Serena Auñónto get bigger . If
Chancellor . “ Endothelial cells help provide blood supply , and tumors need blood supply we can stop that tumor blood supply from growing , then we can help beat that cancer . All of us have had someone affected by cancer , whether a family member or friend , and we ’ re always thinking of how we can fight it . One way is if we can grow these cells on orbit and use them to test new drugs that can prevent that blood supply from growing .” Angiex is only one of many investigations on the space station seeking better treatments for cancer .
Endothelial Cells , an ESA experiment that examined how cultured endothelial cells react to spaceflight , made modifications to the culturing hardware thatt can be put to use by these types of biomedical experiments in space . Insight into the immune system
Astronauts experience impaired immune functionn in space . Impaired immune response also happens with agingg on Earth . Space offers a unique advantage to studying this aging-related immune suppression since conditions that normally develop over decades happen quickly there . A growing body of research takes advantage of this fact . ESA ’ s Leukin-2 experiment demonstrated that microgravity has a fundamental effect on activation of
T-cells , which are involved in turning on and off the immune system . Control samples also flew to the space station and weree cultured in a centrifuge to simulate normal gravity to eliminate the effects of factors such as the stress of launch and increased radiation exposure in space .
“ We weree able to look specifically at what microgravity is doing to the cells ,” says Tammy T . Chang , a researcher at the University of California , San Francisco , and an author on several papers related to Leukin-2 . “ This study added an important piece of informationn to immune dysregulation seen in