NASA and stem cells often hog the headlines, but not usually together. That might be about to change. Researchers from Kingston University, London, have teamed up with NASA鈥檚 Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to grow tissue in zero-gravity labs on Earth from adult stem cells, and to develop medicine that astronauts could one day take with them on a mission to Mars.
The project will combine stem cells from umbilical blood and bone marrow with tissues from adults to grow the new tissue. The technology will be tested during unmanned space missions in 2008. 鈥淚n zero gravity you have a lot of additional possibilities for engineering these tissues,鈥� says stem cell expert Robert Lanza of Advanced Cell Technology in Worcester, Massachusetts, who is not associated with the project. This will allow scientists to 鈥渁dvance this much further than we can on Earth鈥�.
The researchers hope that any medicines they develop will help astronauts fight the effects of bone loss during long space missions. The work will also benefit people on Earth. In zero gravity, liver tissue forms and grows much faster, for instance.
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The hope is that the technology could provide tissue for partial liver transplants within five years, and help people with damaged spines or brains within 20 years. 鈥淭his is the science of the future and has the same potential as antibiotics and vaccines,鈥� Lanza says.