This is not investment advice. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Wccftech.com has a disclosure and ethics policy.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) upcoming cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft contains and interesting set of experiments. These include one which will build three-dimensional neuron models in space for Alzheimer's research and an experiment that will light a fire on the Cygnus to study fire and develop better firefighting strategies in space. The next Cygnus mission is slated to lift off in early August and will be the spacecraft's penultimate flight before it flies for the first time on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket later this year.

3D Stem Cell Model In Space Will Allow For Improved Alzheimers Research

These experiments are just a handful of what NASA aims to build as a low Earth orbit (LEO) economy. The experiments make their way to the ISS on cargo missions that the space agency conducts through Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft and SpaceX's Cargo Dragon. Previous experiments have included those that use stem cells to create a 3D model of human heart tissue for developing better drugs and treatments.

Another is an experiment that has seen the space agency partner up with a private firm to deposit hundreds of layers of thin film protein in an attempt to create an artificial retina. Both these experiments are designed to use the unique environment of microgravity on the ISS to make the cells behave differently than they do on Earth.

The latest biotechnology experiment will also leverage microgravity to create models of neural cells for studying and developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. These models are necessary to develop treatments since the models are required for studying the human central nervous system and its behavior. Creating 3D models on Earth is complicated due to the presence of gravity, and microgravity removes some of these constraints.

2 of 9

Describing the experiment, AXIONIS Therapeutics' chief executive officer and co-founder, Dr. Shane Haggerty, shared during a NASA teleconference:

AXIONIS Therapeutics' NASA Neuronix project on the ISS aims to improve precision neuroscience modeling and therapeutic development by leveraging microgravity conditions in space to develop a novel 3D assemblized model of the mature human brain in which our neuron specific gene therapy will then be tested. To do this, we are sending mature, differentiated human neurons and glia derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells to the International Space Station where they will be 3D self assembled in microgravity conditionsoin orbit.

In addition to the human brain cells, AXIONIS Therapeutics is also sending a proprietary AAV gene therapy to the ISS for testing in this novel model. In recent years a major development in neurological modeling and drug discovery has been the utilization of induced pluripotent stem cells which can be generated from the skin or blood cells of patients. Cells can be taken from any patient and then reprogrammed into becoming cell types of the brain, which are two broad classes, neurons and glia. Patients' iPSCs can also be used to generate organoid models of the human brain which are amazing models. But making organoids can be very lengthy and a labor intensive process. And in some cases, brain organoids lack the cell types and maturity needed to study particular neurological disorders.

AXIONIS' NASA Neuronix project aims to push the boundaries of using human iPSC derived brain cells to model diseases in space where we can make any brain cell from any patient to model their disease. We will test whether sub population of human neurons and glia, that are usually only studied in 2D on ground and monolayer culture, can be rapidly assembled into a 3D model of the mature human brain on orbit. In this way, we can model the neurological disorder of an individual patient more precisely, directly studying human biology and then testing precision medicine for their specific pathology.

The other experiment is the Spacecraft Fire Experiments (Saffire) Saffire-VI experiment which is the last in a series of tests that light up fires in space to understand their behavior. Spacecraft fire safety standards are one of the weakest links in design due to a lack of data, and most systems are typically designed keeping in mind conditions on Earth. To gather data for these systems, fires are lit on board cargo spacecraft at varying pressures and Oxygen concentrations, and cleanup technologies are also tested during the experiments.