Scientists will use the International Space Station to carry out
experiments seeking to improve understanding of currently
incurable child brain tumours and the muscle ageing process,
thanks to UK Space Agency funding.
Due to be ready for launch in 2025, the experiments will be
supervised by astronauts on board for up to six months before
returning to Earth for the results to be analysed.
D(MG)2, led by the Institute of Cancer Research,
received £1.2 million to look at diffuse midline glioma; the
second most common type of “primary high grade” brain tumour in
children that has, so far, been impossible to cure due to the
amount of different cell types it contains.
MicroAge II, led by the University of Liverpool,
was awarded £1.4 million funding for the second part of its
project investigating how the microgravity environment makes
astronauts’ muscles weaken in space, in an accelerated way to how
muscles get weaker as we age on Earth.
Minister of State at the Department for Science,
Innovation and Technology, , said:
Space is the ultimate laboratory testbed with British scientists
and astronauts harnessing the International Space Station for
cutting edge research in nutrition, energy and biomedicine.
This £2.6m project funding will help UK scientists research how
to prevent brain tumours in children, and understand the
biomedical processes of ageing: research with huge benefits for
mankind and health systems around the world.
Another example of the way UK strengths in different sectors from
space to life science and cleantech drive technology leadership.
Dr Paul Bate, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency,
said:
This ground-breaking research highlights the power of space to
push through barriers, revolutionise science and enhance our
lives.
Through a combination of national funding and our vital role in
the European Space Agency, we’re ensuring UK scientists have
access to the unique environment of the ISS for their research,
which will benefit us all.
Announced during Brain Tumour Awareness Month, the ISS experiment
for D(MG)2 will use microgravity to get a clearer picture of how
diffuse midline glioma cells react with each other, so that
potential new avenues for developing novel treatments can be
identified.
Professor of Childhood Cancer Biology at The Institute of
Cancer Research, , said:
Unfortunately, survival rates for patients with diffuse midline
glioma have not changed substantially since Neil Armstrong’s
daughter died of the disease in the early sixties. The last 15
years, however, have revolutionised our understanding of the
biological complexity of these tumours, with exciting new
therapies entering clinical trial at last.
Experiments such as D(MG)2 aboard the International Space Station
will improve our understanding of how cancer cells interact with
each other within three-dimensional structures, and hopefully
lead to new ideas for disrupting tumour growth that we can take
forward back in the lab.
The ISS experiment for MicroAge II will use a lab-grown human
muscle to observe the effects of microgravity and test whether
mitochondria play an important role in muscle loss in space and
determine whether applying tension can slow the degeneration
process, which could help scientists to rapidly develop therapies
to reduce muscle loss as we age.
The UK Space Agency supported MicroAge I, which flew to the ISS
in December 2021 to test lab-grown muscle constructs, each the
size of a grain of rice.
University of Liverpool’s Professor Malcolm Jackson
said:
We are delighted to receive this generous funding from the UK
Space Agency to develop our studies of the effects of
microgravity on loss of skeletal muscle as a model from which we
can further understand muscle loss during ageing.
We will use newly developed techniques to study the role of
changes in mitochondria, tiny structures that are responsible for
supplying energy to cells, in driving the loss of muscle mass
that occurs in microgravity.
The role that a loss of tension on muscle plays in these
mitochondrial changes will be examined using innovative hardware
that we are developing with Kayser Space Ltd which modifies the
amount of tension that the muscle experiences in microgravity.
This will be used to test whether altered tension on muscle
regulates the muscle loss in microgravity and to inform us on the
process during muscle loss during ageing on Earth.
Equipment for the experiments is built by microgravity hardware
specialists, Kayser Space, based in Oxfordshire.
Managing Director of Kayser Space Ltd, David Zolesi,
said:
We are thrilled to be involved in these two new UK Space Agency
funded programmes and to support scientists investigating these
cutting-edge research fields.
Our role, as experts in the design and supply of instruments and
systems used in outer space and especially in crewed spaceflight,
is to provide public and private research groups with the tools
to conduct their research and obtain great results for the
benefit and well-being of all humankind.
