Currently, two projects are exploring how to use the International Space Station (ISS), a weightless environment, to build muscle fiber tissue and liver tissue. If successful, this technology will provide new ideas for the development of new biomedical therapies. Think boldly, maybe one day, human organs can also achieve "space manufacturing." In the past few decades, a great deal of research has focused on the effects of microgravity on different cells. However, this is the first time that human tissue has been cultivated on a large scale in space. Muscle loss is a natural phenomenon in the aging process, which occurs mainly in people over 30 years of age and with low exercise, and increases with age. Ngan Huang of Stanford University said: “When muscle loss is severe, people feel very weak and can cause disease.†Although diet and exercise can alleviate the adverse effects of muscle loss, researchers are always looking for it. A drug that antagonizes muscle loss. In this study, researchers will use muscle tissue cultured in a bioreactor, a chamber that provides adequate nutrition for cells, to evaluate anti-muscle loss drug efficacy. Muscle loss under microgravity If the astronauts are under microgravity for a long time, muscle loss will occur. Therefore, in space, astronauts must exercise rigorously. Huang and her colleagues suspect that perhaps the space microgravity environment can be used to simulate the process of muscle loss and can greatly shorten the time. The team plans to implement their experiments in the ISS next year to see if microgravity can simulate "accelerated" muscle loss. If they can, they hope to use the space environment to evaluate the performance of several drugs that have the potential to become antimuscular. This research will not only bring good news to people living on Earth, but also to astronauts who have suffered muscle loss for a long time. The second study focused on the creation of three-dimensional structures of liver tissue. In the past, biomedical engineers have been able to create some "thinner" tissues in vitro, such as cartilage or skin; however, the organization of complex organs such as liver tissue remains a problem in the bioengineering community. One of the reasons is that the microenvironment of the internal organs is very "soft", and the cells are often in suspension; the stents currently used for artificially growing tissues tend to have a certain hardness, and the cells are deposited in the environment to the bottom of the container due to gravity. Rotating organ Studies have reported that the liver cells cultured in a high-speed rotating bioreactor can metabolize more drugs than the statically cultured liver tissue. However, as the number of cells increases, the rotating bioreactor must move faster to ensure that the cells are in suspension. However, when the speed is too fast, the tissue will be thrown to the wall. The high-speed rotation actually produces the effect of microgravity, so why not directly use the space micro-environment to simulate the growth of organs in the body? Inspired by this, Tammy Chang, an outside scientist at the University of California, San Diego, plans to send different types of stem cells to the ISS in the next few years. These stem cells can differentiate into different liver tissues and perihepatic vessels. They will use a microscope to take real-time photography of the cells in the bioreactor, and after the tissue is formed, the tissue will be sent back to Earth. Chang said the ultimate goal is to transplant some of these tissues into mice to examine the functionality of these organizations. This will open up a whole new path for organ production. "If we can really create organs in space to bring the gospel to countless patients, why not?" Chang also believes that this technology may stimulate rocket technology to develop into a low-orbit, and cheaper. Jordan Miller, a bioengineer at Rice University, believes that examining the growth state of tissue in a microgravity environment can provide answers to some unknown questions. He said: "If microgravity can really bring us positive benefits, perhaps we should identify some biochemical pathway molecules that are activated under microgravity. On Earth we only need to activate these molecules directly (without entering space). It is possible to simulate a microgravity environment." Washable Underpads are reusable pads that are designed to protect
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Organs can come from "the sky": scientists plan to train people on the International Space Station