Mighty Mice to the Rescue: How Mice in Microgravity Help Patients With Muscle and Bone Loss on Earth
People usually think of bone and muscle as very different things. Bones support the body and give it shape, while muscles provide the strength…
Space Crystals and the Search for a Cancer Cure: Using Microgravity to Improve Protein Crystallization
To take a shot at a “holy grail” of cancer drug discovery, researchers from Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research set their sights on…
Crystal Clear: Super-Sized Protein Crystals From Space Could Help Treat Diseases on Earth
In Greek mythology, Pandora’s Box releases disease and other miseries into the world. But in real life, a very different type of box uses…
From Science Fairs to Space: Student Experiments Help Launch New Era of Space-Based Research
To advance scientific discovery in new ways, scientists are taking their experiments and labs to an environment unlike any other: the International Space Station…
The View From the Cupola: Lucie Low
The opportunity to do biomedical research on the International Space Station (ISS) is so far outside the realm of possibility for most researchers in…
Mending a Broken Heart Using Microgravity: Cardiovascular Progenitor Cells Hold Promise for Regenerative Therapies
The human heart is truly amazing. Each day, this small muscular organ beats approximately 100,000 times and pumps around 2,000 gallons of blood, bringing…
Attracting Entrepreneurs to Space: MassChallenge Grantees Move Early-Stage Innovations Forward
Imagine having the next revolutionary idea with the potential to improve disease treatment, to build better solar cells, or to detect nuclear radiation. What…
Building Bones: Testing a New Osteoporosis Therapy With Mice in Microgravity
Every three seconds, a person somewhere in the world breaks a bone due to osteoporosis—a progressive disease that decreases bone density, making bones weak…
Space Worms: Unexpected Pioneers of Discovery & Commercial Services
Three years ago, a two-headed worm returned from the International Space Station (ISS), and in the summer of 2017, the worm achieved internet and…
Reshaping Drug Delivery Millions of Crystals at a Time
Many cancer therapies, such as Merck & Co.’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda®, are dilute solutions of large molecules called monoclonal antibodies in a saline solution…
Pure of Heart: How Microgravity is Improving Cardiac Cell Quality
It is old wisdom that life is a journey and not a destination. But when your destination is space, it might seem difficult to…
Microbes in Microgravity: Analyzing Gene Expression to Better Understand Bacterial Behavior in Space
By observing the health of astronauts that travel into space, scientists have learned that microgravity has important effects on the human body, causing substantial…