The Beauty of Accelerated Aging: Using Tissue Chips to Explore Age-Related Muscle Loss in Microgravity
Contrary to Bob Dylan’s famous song, it’s not possible to “stay forever young,” and aging is inevitable. As we get older, many things change,…
From Root Cause to Remedy: Can Microgravity Help Prevent Post-Traumatic Osteoarthritis?
Alan Grodzinsky sees things differently. When he uses fluorescent dyes to test cell viability in the cartilage tissue he studies, dead cells are supposed…
Unlocking the Secrets of the Immune System: How Tissue Chips in Space Could Hold the Key
They say you’re only as old as you feel, but in reality, you’re only as old as your immune cells. Even though the calendar…
A Small Drop With a Big Impact: Fundamental Science in Space to Improve Medicine on Earth
It’s 10 p.m., and researchers and students excitedly gather inside a lab at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York. All are focused on…
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…
