By SATNews –
The National Stem Cell Foundation (NSCF) has been awarded $3.1 million from NASA to continue its breakthrough studies on brain cell behavior in microgravity—the team’s patent-pending method for the long-duration, in-space culturing of organoids (tiny 3D replicas of an organ that mimic cell behavior) has already been widely adopted by the space community.
The NASA award will fund additional ground research and another three missions to the International Space Station (ISS) through 2027. The Commonwealth of Kentucky, with a growing presence in the rapidly expanding space economy, is providing a 10% match for the NASA award valued at $300,000.
NSCF has conducted six missions on the ISS since 2019, sending 3D organoid models of the human brain to the orbiting laboratory. Organoids for the first six flights have been made from the cells of people with Parkinson’s disease and primary progressive MS. The next flights will also include organoids made from the cells of people with Alzheimer’s.
Findings from the research have been recently published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine. In the last round of highly competitive In Space Production Application (InSPA) awards, NSCF was NASA’s first and top priority selection for alignment with NASA strategic goals of developing applications that will significantly improve the quality of life for people on Earth, strengthen U.S. technological leadership, and create high-quality jobs. These missions continue our commercial development partnership with Axiom Space, the leading provider of human spaceflight services, operating end-to-end missions to the ISS while developing its successor, Axiom Station.
