A New Paper Led by Cedars-Sinai Identifies Alternatives Utilizing Area-Primarily based Applied sciences to Manufacture Stem Cells, Create Superior Illness Fashions and Increase 3D Printing Capabilities
The key to producing giant batches of stem cells extra effectively might lie within the near-zero gravity circumstances of area. Scientists at Cedars-Sinai have discovered that microgravity has the potential to contribute to life-saving advances on Earth by facilitating the speedy mass manufacturing of stem cells.
A brand new paper, led by Cedars Sinai and printed within the peer-review journal Stem Cell Reports, highlights key alternatives mentioned throughout the 2020 Biomanufacturing in Area Symposium to increase the manufacture of stem cells in area.
Biomanufacturing — a kind of stem cell manufacturing that makes use of organic supplies similar to microbes to provide substances and biomaterials appropriate to be used in preclinical, medical, and therapeutic functions — will be extra productive in microgravity circumstances.
“We’re discovering that spaceflight and microgravity is a fascinating place for biomanufacturing as a result of it confers quite a lot of very particular properties to organic tissues and organic processes that may assist mass produce cells or different merchandise in a method that you just would not be capable of do on Earth,” mentioned stem cell biologist Arun Sharma, Ph.D., analysis scientist and head of a brand new analysis laboratory within the Cedars-Sinai Board of Governors Regenerative Medication Institute, Smidt Coronary heart Institute and Division of Biomedical Sciences.
“The final 20 years have seen exceptional advances in regenerative drugs and exponential development in area applied sciences enabling new alternatives to entry and commercialize area,” he mentioned.
Attendees on the digital area symposium in December recognized greater than 50 potential industrial alternatives for conducting biomanufacturing work in area, based on the Cedars-Sinai paper. Essentially the most promising fell into three classes: illness modeling, biofabrication, and stem-cell-derived merchandise.
The primary, illness modeling, is utilized by scientists to review ailments and doable remedies by replicating full-function buildings — whether or not utilizing stem cells, organoids (miniature 3D buildings grown from human stem cells that resemble human tissue), or different tissues.
Investigators have discovered that when the physique is uncovered to low-gravity circumstances for prolonged durations of time, it experiences accelerated bone loss and ageing. By creating illness fashions primarily based on this accelerated ageing course of, analysis scientists can higher perceive the mechanisms of the ageing course of and illness development.
“Not solely can this work assist astronauts, however it may additionally result in us manufacturing bone constructs or skeletal muscle constructs that might be utilized to ailments like osteoporosis and different types of accelerated bone ageing and muscle losing that folks expertise on Earth,” mentioned Sharma, who’s the corresponding creator of the paper.
One other extremely mentioned matter on the symposium was biofabrication, which makes use of manufacturing processes to provide supplies like tissues and organs. 3D printing is without doubt one of the core biofabrication applied sciences.
A significant concern with producing these supplies on Earth includes gravity-induced density, which makes it arduous for cells to increase and develop. With the absence of gravity and density in area, scientists are hopeful that they will use 3D printing to print distinctive shapes and merchandise, like organoids or cardiac tissues, in a method that may’t be replicated on Earth.
The third class has to do with the manufacturing of stem cells and understanding how a few of their basic properties are influenced by microgravity. A few of these properties embody efficiency, or the power of a stem cell to resume itself, and differentiation, the power for stem cells to show into different cell varieties.
Understanding a number of the results of spaceflight on stem cells can doubtlessly result in higher methods to fabricate giant numbers of cells within the absence of gravity. Scientists from Cedars-Sinai might be sending stem cells into space early subsequent yr, along with NASA and a personal contractor, Area Tango, to check whether or not it’s doable to provide giant batches in a low gravity setting.
“Whereas we’re nonetheless within the exploratory part of a few of this analysis, that is now not within the realm of science fiction,” Sharma mentioned. “Throughout the subsequent 5 years we may even see a state of affairs the place we discover cells or tissues that may be made in a method that’s merely not doable right here on Earth. And I feel that is extraordinarily thrilling.”
