Notre Dame cancer researchers send experiment to space
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University of Notre Dame researchers sent brain cancer research to new heights aboard NASA’s 30th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission on Thursday.
Capitalizing on the microgravity environment aboard the International Space Station, assistant professor Meenal Datta, an affiliate of Notre Dame’s Harper Cancer Research Institute, seeks new insight into human biology, the university said in a news release.
Materials similar to those in Datta’s Notre Dame lab were miniaturized and automated in partnership with Lexington, Kentucky-based Space Tango. The experiment will study glioblastoma, an aggressive and currently incurable brain cancer.
“When you study brain tumors on Earth, that usually means studying them in a flat layer in a dish on a benchtop,” she said. “But the microgravity environment of the ISS provides conditions that in some ways mimic how a tumor would form when it is suspended within the brain’s tissues.”
The study will focus on growing organoids, tiny human-like organs that stand in for human tissues in experimental studies, Datta explained. Organoids grown from glioblastoma-cells and organoids from immune cells will show how immune cells interact with cancerous cells. They are among the first researchers to grow glioblastoma-immune organoids in space and compare their growth and development to similar structures grown on Earth.
“Organoids form organically from human cells but in Earth’s gravity, they are heterogeneous and form slowly,” Datta noted. “Microgravity will provide an environment where they can form quickly and regularly, allowing for clearer and more reproducible results in experimental studies, including drug discovery and testing.”
An earth-based experiment will run concurrently to provide a control condition for the 30-day space study. Upon its return, Datta and Alice Burchett, a doctoral student in Notre Dame’s Bioengineering Graduate Program, will collect analyze the differences.
Datta, Luo and other researchers at Notre Dame plan to send additional experiments to the ISS.
“When it comes to advancing health research, there are many things we can do more efficiently in space than on the ground,” Datta said. “Space provides a better way to synthesize a reproducible model and better models allow us to more quickly develop and test the treatments that can fight this cancer and ultimately save lives.”
The SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft lifted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It autonomously docked with the space station on Saturday.