Space station study may increase understanding of aging process
When traveling in space, astronauts experience physiological changes normally associated with aging, such as bone loss, muscle deterioration and altered immune systems. When the astronauts return to Earth, the changes often reverse. To better understand the relevance of the astronauts’ experience to human health — both on the ground and beyond — the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) partnered with the International Space Station U.S. National Laboratory (link is external) (ISS National Lab) to send tissue chips, a research technology that reflects the human body, into space. The ISS National Lab and NASA partner to use the U.S. portion of the space station for research initiatives leveraging the unique microgravity environment in space.
Wednesday, a set of tissue chips that model aspects of the human immune system will launch on SpaceX’s 16th commercial resupply mission (awarded by NASA) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to the ISS National Lab. The chip set is the first of several supported by the NIH that will travel to the ISS National Lab over the next few months. Led by NCATS through its Tissue Chips in Space initiative, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), developed the immune system chip to explore the relationship between aging and immune responses and to look for possible ways to slow the aging process.