Indiana invention reaches milestone on International Space Station
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA device developed in southern Indiana is at the center of a medical milestone achieved aboard the International Space Station.
Florida-based Redwire Corp., which has a growing presence in Floyd County, has successfully 3D bioprinted the first human knee meniscus in orbit using its upgraded 3D BioFabrication Facility, or BFF, which was originally developed by Techshot Inc. in Greenville.
Techshot was acquired by Redwire in 2021, and the Floyd County operation now houses the in-space manufacturing and operations business unit for Redwire.
Redwire Vice President of Corporate Advancement Rich Boling told Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta the goal is to alleviate the organ donor shortage in the U.S.
“Unfortunately, 22 people a day are dying on organ donor waiting lists, and one is too many,” Boling said. “And we believe that this process, this road we’re on will be a solution to solve that, and I think that’s significant for everyone.”
The project is part of a partnership between Redwire and its client, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Center for Biotechnology, a biomedical research center that explores and adapts promising biotechnologies.
Boling said the center wanted to look at manufactured tissues because a torn meniscus is the number one injury among military service personnel.
“A torn meniscus can affect soldiers and training. It can affect veterans after 30 years of service,” he said. “And so it’s an important research data point for them to learn how to better take care of wounded warriors.”
So, why space? Redwire says 3D-printed human tissue on Earth is so soft that it collapses under its own weight into a puddle. Printing tissue in space eliminates gravity, so the structures don’t collapse.
The BFF uses bio “ink” made from adult stem cells, proteins and other growth factors, and then prints ultra-fine layers that are thinner than a human hair.
After being printed, the meniscus was cultured for 14 days on the ISS in Redwire’s Advanced Space Experiment Processor, which is used to condition and solidify the assembled cells into tissue in a matter of weeks, making it ready to return to Earth.
The 3D-printed meniscus has returned to Earth and is now being evaluated and compared to actual human tissue.
“We believe that the tissue we manufactured in space is just as good as what the human body produces, and we think that this is a game changer,” said Boling. “And the initial comment we got back from the customer so far from their analysis [is] that it looks great.”
While the 3D bioprinting takes place on the ISS, the entire operation is controlled from Greenville at Redwire’s Payload Operations Control Center. From there, Redwire employees can control their devices on the space station and connect with the astronauts who serve as their trained laboratory technicians.
“It’s amazing to have a conversation directly with an astronaut and to get their firsthand accounts of how things are going,” Boling said. “The crew that printed this meniscus for us, most of them returned to Earth recently [and] they brought the meniscus back with them. It’s been gratifying to see in interviews that they’ve given since being back that this experiment was really high on their interest list.”
But Redwire will soon have an upgraded facility in Floyd County from which experiments can be controlled.
In July, the company announced plans for a 30,000-square-foot microgravity payload development facility at the new Novaparke Innovation & Technology Campus in Edwardsville. The facility will add more laboratory space and provide a larger Payload Operations Control Center.
Boling said having Redwire continue to invest in the Indiana operations is significant because it shows the company recognizes the value of in-space manufacturing operations, especially as more commercial companies become involved.
“We are sort of coming into an era within the history of spaceflight, where trusted commercial companies are being allowed to play a bigger and bigger and bigger role in all spaceflight space activities,” he said. “And Redwire is one of those trusted companies, and so we are seeing demand for our work across all business units increased greatly.”
Redwire plans to break ground on the new facility in November, and construction is expected to take about 15 months. The company currently has 50 employees with plans to add 25 with the new facility.
Among the other projects the new facility will support is Redwire’s platform designed to grow small-batch crystals of protein-based pharmaceuticals and other key pharmaceutically relevant molecules for research and production.
The company is partnering with Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly and Co. to conduct critical testing during the initial flight missions for the Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory – Bio-crystal Optimization Xperiment, or PIL-BOX. The first mission is scheduled for November.
And the 3D bioprinting efforts will continue as well, Boling said. Another set of bio inks will be sent to the ISS on the SpaceX CRS 29 mission scheduled for November. They will be used to attempt what Boling called cardiac construct printing.