The International Space Station has been orbiting in lower earth since 1998 and has been continually inhabited since November 2000. The ISS was originally conceived as a staging base for future missions into deep space. As it turns out, lower earth orbit is an ideal setting for scientific research, from physics and meteorology to astronomy and the life sciences. In this episode we talk with three scientists whose projects are using lower earth orbit to deepen our knowledge of biotechnology and its benefits for mankind.
The International Space Station has been orbiting in lower earth since 1998 and has been continually inhabited since November 2000. The ISS was originally conceived as a staging base for future missions into deep space. As it turns out, lower earth orbit is an ideal setting for scientific research, from physics and meteorology to astronomy and the life sciences. In this episode we talk with three scientists whose projects are using lower earth orbit to deepen our knowledge of biotechnology and its benefits for mankind.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Space, the final frontier. To boldly go where no man has gone before.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
In an orbit about 250 miles above Earth, the station travels at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour, circling the globe every 90 minutes.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
The ISS is an amazing feat of engineering that actually was begun in 1998 and first inhabited in 2000. So it has been continuously inhabited for 22 plus years.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
The International Space Station, it's a unique laboratory in space where scientists can do experiments that cannot be done on the ground.
Speaker 5 (00:56):
The International Space Station will be decommissioned at the end of 2028 or 2030, and we are transitioning over to private space stations. And so this is a very exciting time to be thinking about low earth orbit.
Rachel King (01:14):
When Sputnik became the first artificial satellite to orbit earth in 1957, it not only launched a space race between two superpowers, it unleashed the space age.
(01:26):
During the decades that followed Russia's startling achievement and America's shortly thereafter, a competition ensued that would lead to the establishment of NASA, the moon landing, the space shuttle, and the international space station, which orbits earth today.
Rachel King (01:45):
The International Space Station, or ISS, is positioned in lower earth orbit. It was originally conceived of as a staging base for future missions and to deep space. As it turns out, lower earth orbit is an ideal setting for scientific research, from physics and meteorology to astronomy and the life sciences.
(02:06):
Today, we will do some exploring of our own. We talk with three scientists whose projects are using lower earth orbit to deepen our knowledge of biotechnology and its benefits for mankind.
(02:18):
I'm Rachel King, and you are listening to I Am Bio.
Rachel King (02:42):
The microgravity of lower earth orbit is helping scientists advance biotechnology in surprising ways. Scientists and entrepreneurs are conducting research at a dizzying pace, and finding potential solutions to problems we face here on earth.
(02:57):
Each of our guests is involved with a different aspect of biotechnology research in space. But as you will see, there are commonalities across their endeavors.
Jana Stoudemire (03:07):
I am Jana Stoudemire, director of in-space manufacturing at Axiom Space.
Alain Berinstain (03:13):
My name Alain Berinstain. I'm the chief strategy officer at Space Tango.
Nicole Wagner (03:19):
My name is Nicole Wagner and I am the president and CEO of LambdaVision.
Rachel King (03:24):
Before we discuss the exciting projects our guests have in space, let's talk about the appeal of lower earth orbit, or LEO as it's often called, some 250 miles from earth.
(03:36):
One advantage of microgravity is the acceleration of biotech research by improving things like protein crystallization, as Space Tango's Alain Berinstain describes.
Alain Berinstain (03:48):
Scientists and researchers on earth use protein crystallization to help with drug discovery. Proteins in our bodies are responsible for regulating a lot of the processes in our bodies. They break things down, they build things up. And the regulation of these proteins can help keep us healthy, and in some cases, some runaway proteins do things that are not so good for us.
(04:14):
And so understanding how these proteins work is important. Some proteins can be regulated in a way to turn them on or turn them off using certain drugs. And these drugs are used like a key into a keyhole to active or deactivate them, depending on whether it's a beneficial protein or not.
(04:31):
In order to design that key, you need to understand what that protein looks like at the molecular level. And on earth, people have done this for a long time, they grow crystals of these proteins and then they look at these proteins using x-rays diffraction. And what that does is that gives you a very detailed 3D image of what that keyhole looks like, so that you can design a molecular key to fit into that keyhole to either active or deactivate that protein depending on what you want to do with the protein.
Rachel King (05:04):
And what does space have to do with any of this? Alain continues.
Alain Berinstain (05:08):
Microgravity creates that quiescent environment where protein crystals have been shown to grow bigger, to grow more perfectly. So you send these proteins into space to crystallize them, you bring them back on earth. And because those proteins are a little bit more perfect, when you do the x-rays crystallography on them, you get a much higher resolution image, 3D image of those proteins so you can design that molecular key that fits in, that drug, exactly the way it needs to be to interact with that protein.
(05:44):
So it helps in drug discovery, drug design, to grow some proteins that may be hard to grow on the ground very nicely. And it's been shown many times now that growing them in space can help you make a protein crystal that's that much more perfect that allows you to design that drug that will interact with it.
Rachel King (06:03):
Jana Stoudemire of Axiom Space explains that space is truly a new frontier.
Jana Stoudemire (06:09):
The absence of gravity allows unique insight into the fundamental processes that drive our understanding of our world, science, technology, even life itself. And when I first transitioned from biotech and pharma over to the space industry, it was interesting because the reason that I did it was because of the science.
(06:31):
It really is a true innovation platform to work in a microgravity environment. Taking gravity out of the equation is not something that we can really think about because it's inherent in everything that we do. Our day-to-day activities involve gravity so much that you don't think about what it would be like to remove that force.
(06:52):
When you do, the changes that you see are not what you might expect in terms of biological systems as well as physical sciences. So for example, there's no sedimentation in microgravity. You don't have convection-driven buoyancy. Heat doesn't rise.
(07:09):
So things stay in the environment that you put them in, and for things like cells that are providing different types of growth factors that they're admitting into the media or for layer deposition, things that require surface tension forces which are much stronger in microgravity, you get to see things change in terms of cell-cell interactions, cell matrix interactions, the way that proteins actually form, and even the way that you have the ability to understand changes in gene expression.
(07:44):
And that's traditionally the way that research has been conducted on the ISS. It's, look at what you can learn about process in that environment and translate that to the ground.
Rachel King (07:55):
For LambdaVision's Nicole Wagner, it was a chance meeting during a workshop that raised her awareness of the benefits of space research.
Nicole Wagner (08:03):
The work that we're doing in microgravity right now all started back in 2016 when LambdaVision was part of the MassChallenge accelerator program. So for those of you who aren't familiar with the MassChallenge accelerator program, it's a program that is located in Boston where the participants get a lot of help from mentors and other industry professionals to help them develop their technology and take it to commercialization.
(08:31):
We were accepted into that cohort back in 2016, and it was very serendipitous. Um, I was sitting at the table and somebody came around that day and they knocked on the table and they said, "Hey, by the way, CASIS, which is the Center for Advancement of Science in Space, and Boeing are here, and they have a workshop talking about some of the ways that microgravity can be used to generate products that have benefit to earth."
(08:58):
And that day I had nothing to do. I said, "All right, well, I'll go down the hall and see what this is all about." So I took a walk down the hall and I was expecting at the time to hear presentations about NASA and deep space. I wasn't expecting to hear about all of the work that's going on in the International Space Station and the benefit of that work to patients or people on earth.
(09:21):
So when I was in that presentation, we started to talk about bio printing tissues, organs on chips. And that actually rang a bell in my brain that said, hey, there might be a way that we can use this microgravity platform for the way that we're manufacturing these artificial retinas.
Rachel King (09:39):
And the rest, as they say, is history. Today, LambdaVision is developing one of the first technologies on the ISS with the potential for clinical use here at home. Alain of Space Tango is anxious to get the word out to other biotech companies.
Alain Berinstain (09:53):
It's been fascinating working with the biotechnology industry, with biotech researchers and universities, to teach them really what microgravity can do for them and to help them reach their goals.
(10:05):
It's an environment in which you can do research that cannot be done on the ground. It creates an environment where you can maybe replace some of your techniques on the ground by doing it in space. It can be time-effective and cost-effective. It can take a long time, for example, animal models to develop certain disease characteristics that you would want to do some drug screening on, for example. Where we can do that in a matter of days on ISS using cells.
(10:36):
Even the government regulatory agencies have started to recognize the use of cellular environments as analogs for the animal studies that have been done in the past. And now those cellular environments can be used on space platforms to do this disease modeling.
(10:54):
And so, as we work with the academic community and industry, we're finding more and more applications where this could be useful. We can even use the microgravity environment for doing some special bio printing, for example. Bio printing is big in biotech. What we can do in microgravity is make sure that as you're printing, if you need to have a nice, constant or uniform distribution of cells or distribution of drugs that might settle otherwise on earth, it won't settle in microgravity.
(11:27):
So we can print, for example, some structures that mimic bones or that mimic joints or that mimic other biological environments, where we can uniformly distribute materials within that printed piece.
(11:43):
We reach out all the time and we're getting a lot of interest. It's fascinating.
Rachel King (11:48):
Biotech companies may want to look at LambdaVision as a case study for life sciences research in space. Nicole explains the basis of her technology.
Nicole Wagner (11:57):
LambdaVision is targeting the diseases of retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration. So our goal is to restore vision for those patients. Retinitis pigmentosa affects about 100,000 people in the United States and about one million people globally.
(12:13):
Macular degeneration, on the other hand, affects about 10 million people in the United States and over 50 million people globally. And while there are some treatments that slow the progression of these diseases, there is no cure. And so that's where LambdaVision is coming in. We're trying to restore vision to these patients with our artificial retina technology.
(12:31):
The artificial retina that's developed by LambdaVision uses the light activated protein bacterial rhodopsin to restore vision in the eyes. What happens when you have retinitis pigmentosa or macular degeneration, the light sensing cells, or your rods and cones, they die. As those cells die, your eyes become incapable of taking light energy or light in a room and converting that into a signal that can be sent to the optic nerve and to the brain.
(12:59):
And so what our technology is, is we have a small scaffold, which we coat with that light-activated protein, that bacterial rhodopsin, and then that would go in the back of the eye where those photo receptor cells, those rods and cones, would exist. And now, in response to light, the protein is going to absorb that light and pump ions toward the neural cells, which will then be picked up by receptors and sent to the optic nerve and to the brain.
Rachel King (13:25):
Nicole tells us how the scaffold is built, and why building it in space is a huge advantage.
Nicole Wagner (13:31):
The way that we manufacture our artificial retinas right now is through a process called layer-by-layer electrostatic deposition. That's really a fancy bunch of words that basically means that we take a scaffold and we coat many times a protein onto that scaffold through electrostatic binding to generate a film that we can then put in the back of the eye.
(13:54):
And so this process is very much subject to the effects of gravity. So what you can imagine is having six glasses of water or six glasses of any type of solution on your table, and our little sub stray material is going to float on the top of each one of those solutions. And as it floats there, you can imagine that anything that's in that glass is going to want to settle out because of gravity.
(14:15):
And you can also imagine evaporation, surface tension, all playing a role in how that protein is going to deposit on that scaffold that's sitting on the top of those solutions. So we do that dipping process 200 times. And you can imagine that if you have any imperfection at layer 20, layer 50, that will get compounded by the time that you get to layer 200.
(14:36):
So that really reduces the amount of usable area for us to leverage and then use in our pre-clinical and hopefully, eventually, clinical trials. It's not that the process is impossible to do on earth, but it's very, very, very inefficient.
(14:53):
And so in a microgravity environment, we get much more homogenous films, a lot less waste, and that ultimately leads to a better performance of the artificial retina.
Rachel King (15:11):
When we come back from a break, we'll discover how companies are working together to advance science in space.
(15:16):
Could the building blocks of nature contain the answers to our greatest challenges? Can science break barriers and reshape our world for the better? Bio is bringing you Nature's Building Blocks, a brand-new film series produced for us by BBC Storyworks commercial productions.
(15:48):
Let us take you on a journey to see some of the most exciting innovations shaping the world around us. From cornfield cars to the team trying to slow the aging of ovaries, we find the stories behind the science that affect our daily lives.
(16:03):
Discover how science answers some of our biggest questions. Stream the series now at NaturesBuildingBlocksSeries.com.
(16:24):
Before the break, we talked with our guests about how science in space could enhance biomedical research and manufacturing. But is it practical? What are the prospects for the future? How are companies collaborating in space research?
(16:43):
Axiom Space is building the first commercial space station and preparing for a robust marketplace.
Jana Stoudemire (16:49):
Axiom is building a commercial space station and is the only commercial company that's leveraging the existing international space station to build a first commercial space station. In 2020, Axiom was actually awarded exclusive use of the docking port on the International Space Station that allows us to attach modules, bring up additional modules, and build out a complete space station, including power and thermal capabilities that will allow us to separate when the ISS is decommissioned at the end of the decade and become a free flyer.
(17:24):
On the International Space Station, the work that goes on right now supports things like fundamental science as well as applied research that can be related to future in-space manufacturing applications.
Rachel King (17:38):
Commercial space stations will be critical to the growing space economy, especially as the ISS is decommissioned and governments increasingly turn to the private sector for services.
(17:49):
LambdaVision and Space Tango are currently working exclusively on the ISS, but envision a future transition to private enterprises.
Nicole Wagner (17:58):
So today we have flown seven experiments to the International Space Station since 2018. And of those payloads, we have been able to generate multiple 200-layer thin films in microgravity that we have then come back and analyzed on earth.
(18:12):
The work that we've done has shown really promising results, and we are planning to continue to do additional experiments in microgravity over the next couple of years. Our next flight is actually scheduled for crew seven, which is tentatively scheduled to launch in September of this year where we will be flying protein to the International Space Station to look at the stability and integrity of the protein after three and six months' duration on orbit.
(18:35):
If all goes well, we think that there is a possibility that we could continue to manufacture our artificial retina on the International Space Station, and are currently thinking about ways that we can transition some of the work that we're doing now on the International Space Station to some of these private space stations, which is a big topic for discussion recently as most of you know that the International Space Station will be decommissioned at the end of 2028 or 2030, I think is the timeline right now. And we are transitioning over to private space stations.
(19:07):
And so this is a very exciting time to be thinking about low earth orbit because we are thinking about what ideally we would like to see on these other space stations, and how our project may integrate into some of these designs.
Rachel King (19:24):
Space Tango is designing experiments for space research on the ISS and believes future breakthroughs in both healthcare and technology may occur off of our planet.
Alain Berinstain (19:35):
Space Tango is focused on developing tools that help scientists do their studies in microgravity, but also help us manufacture new products in space. And what we do at Space Tango is we build these what we call CubeLabs. These are small, shoebox-sized, sealed boxes in which the magic happens where we'll do these automated experiments and control them from our control room in Lexington, Kentucky while they're on ISS.
(20:06):
And we can grow cells, we can grow plants, we can monitor what's going on using microscopes, control the microscopes. We can feed the cells that need to be fed, we can keep them at the right temperature, and we can work with the astronauts to install the hardware on ISS during the experiments and also bring them back. And we work with SpaceX, we work with NASA, we work with the whole chain that it takes to launch one of these boxes and come back.
(20:36):
But pretty much every launch to ISS has three or four or five of our CubeLabs on board to do a month worth of experiments and then come back.
Rachel King (20:45):
As Nicole explains, LambdaVision's experiments are made possible with Space Tango's shoe boxes.
Nicole Wagner (20:52):
When we are doing our experiments on the International Space Station, what we have is we have an experiment that is in, we call it CubeLab. So this is a shoebox that Space Tango has developed which contains a whole bunch of hardware, so a lot of pumps and tubing that pushes protein over our scaffold in a microgravity environment.
(21:13):
One of the really great things about the work that we're doing with Space Tango is that we also have the ability to monitor in real time. So through each of these flights, what we're looking at, we have a lot of cameras where we're actually monitoring the films in real time to see how that protein is being deposited on the thin films.
(21:29):
Once those thin films come back to earth, they come back on a rocket, we get them back, we then take them apart. So we take those shoe boxes apart at Kennedy Space Center. We take out our samples. This is call de integration. So we reintegrate that box. We then take those samples, send them back to LambdaVision's lab, where we do a number of analytical techniques to compare the work that was done in microgravity, to how we're seeing the films on earth.
(21:56):
And to date, we have not seen any difference in terms of changes in stability or things like that. We haven't seen any issues there.
Rachel King (22:03):
These breakthroughs are certainly exciting, but what will it take to bring space research into the mainstream? Is there a future in space for biotechnology? And does space research make sense financially?
(22:15):
Jana brings us back down to earth.
Jana Stoudemire (22:18):
Doing research in microgravity, we always say if you can do it in the lab down the hall, you actually should. Because right now, we are not in a full commercial cycle and launch costs are still pretty expensive.
(22:32):
And so a lot of the research that has been done on the International Space Station to date, the up mass, down mass, and crew time costs are actually subsidized by NASA and the ISS National Laboratory. That's not gonna be the case for commercial space. And we need those launch costs to come down.
(22:52):
But what we're seeing is an inflection point. Where we are in the market right now is that there are more launches that we're seeing than ever. In fact, the traffic at the station is almost like a busy airport. So you're starting to see the cadence really pick up.
(23:08):
As that happens and launch costs go down and we have more access to crew on orbit that can help to conduct this research and look at in-space manufacturing applications with facilities that actually allow us to do that, you're gonna see I think a change going to space. It's gonna become more routine. When it does, the cost will be much more in line.
Rachel King (23:35):
Nicole says that developing LambdaVision's artificial retina in space is already cost-effective.
Nicole Wagner (23:41):
LambdaVision's artificial retina, we are completely autonomous. So we don't need any astronaut time. We can make many artificial retinas in that shoebox, so we don't need a lot of mass or volume. Think if our artificial retina like a hole punch. It's a very, very thin film.
(23:57):
Another thing that drives ability to use the space station is whether or not you need heating or cooling power. Our protein is very stable, and because it is so stable, we don't need heating or cooling. And so we can fly under ambient conditions.
(24:09):
So this is another advantage for why this artificial retina technology has such potential and is a great use case for microgravity.
Rachel King (24:17):
Alain also believes that the future is bright for the space economy.
Alain Berinstain (24:21):
The transition from the International Space Station, which is owned by governments around the world, to commercial space stations will give rise to new opportunities for commercial companies. The next iteration is going to be these commercial space stations.
(24:37):
And so the benefit is, to commercial enterprise, to do things in ways they haven't done it before, to do it cheaper, to allow them to have other customers as well, to be more flexible. It does potentially give the government access to cheaper services overall. And at the same time, it creates an ecosystem of other companies.
(24:58):
It will still be the beginning of a new, exciting era of doing science and exploration in low earth orbit.
Rachel King (25:06):
Nicole perfectly sums up the future for biotech in the space economy.
Nicole Wagner (25:11):
A lot of the excitement around the work that LambdaVision is doing as well as a number of other companies in microgravity is really thinking about how we can transform and really build out this low earth orbit economy, thinking about ways that we're transitioning from ISS to these commercial platforms and the role that some of these implementation partners will play in that, as well as the role in what they're calling these CLDs, commercial LEO destinations, will play.
(25:38):
And so this is a very, very exciting time for biotech, of course, of all things. But it's also very exciting for companies that are looking to leverage microgravity to develop or manufacture or commercialize their products.
Rachel King (25:52):
Truly, the sky is the limit in humanity's search for ways to improve our condition. Lower earth orbit offers a whole new stratosphere to explore, create, and innovate. Perhaps space is the next frontier for biotechnology. We're excited about what the next chapter might bring.
(26:11):
I want to thank our guests, Alain, Jana, and Nicole for a fascinating discussion of what is possible for biotechnology in the sky.
(26:22):
Make sure to subscribe, rate, and/or review this podcast and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn at IAmBiotech. And subscribe to Good Day Bio at Bio.org/goodday.
(26:36):
This episode was developed by executive producer Theresa Brady and producers Lynne Finnerty and Rob Gutnikoff. It was engineered and mixed by Jay Goodman with theme music created by Luke Smith and Sam Brady.