NASA to send organs-on-chips to space

NASA is planning to send small devices containing human cells in a 3D matrix — known as tissue chips or organs-on-chips — to the International Space Station (ISS) to test how they respond to stress, drugs and genetic changes. Made of flexible plastic, tissue chips have ports and channels to provide nutrients and oxygen to the cells inside them. The “Tissue Chips in Space” initiative seeks to better understand the role of microgravity on human health and disease and to translate that understanding to improved human health on Earth, NASA said.

“Spaceflight causes many significant changes in the human body,” said Liz Warren, Associate Program Scientist at the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) in the US. “We expect tissue chips in space to behave much like an astronaut’s body, experiencing the same kind of rapid change,” Warren said.The US space agency is planning the investigations in collaboration with CASIS and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the National Institutes for Health (NIH). Many of the changes in the human body caused by microgravity resemble the onset and progression of diseases associated with ageing on Earth, such as bone and muscle loss. But the space-related changes occur much faster. That means scientists may be able to use tissue chips in space to model changes that might take months or years to happen on Earth.

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