Specially designed cells from the Allen Institute embarked on an out-of-this-world adventure—literally. On Sunday August 24, the cells blasted off to the International Space Station as part of a multi-year research project by Cedars-Sinai investigating whether stem cells can be turned into heart and brain organoids in space. If successful, this would be a scientific first.

Growing organoids in space

“On Earth, gravity compresses organoids, which are three-dimensional clumps of cells,” said Arun Sharma, Ph.D., director of the Cedars-Sinai Center for Space Medicine Research. “In space, gravity is reduced to almost nothing, what we call microgravity, and we believe that organoids will grow better under these conditions. They might develop new blood vessels that we aren’t able to develop on Earth, organize themselves in unique ways, or maybe even harbor different cell types that we can only develop in microgravity.”

Successfully accomplishing this feat would allow researchers to model diseases and test drugs for efficacy at a scale that wouldn’t be possible on earth.

Clive Svendsen, Ph.D., is executive director of the Board of Governors Regenerative Medicine Institute and a collaborator on the mission who studies brain organoids.    

“My lab is focused on the study of neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, Huntington’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, and we use brain organoids as a tool for modeling these diseases,” Svendsen said. “Creating these organoids in space is potentially a step toward accelerating our work and gaining better understanding of these diseases.”  

Allen Institute scientists in the Cell Science team engineered special stem cells to contain glowing markers that visually tell scientists when they turn into heart or brain organoids. 

Original report by FOX 13

Allen Institute cell lines

“The specific lines being used for the mission are Sox2-gfp and Actn2-gfp. Sox2 is great because it labels a gene that has been identified as necessary for several developmental transitions. And these cells can display gene expression in real time in living cells.” said Brock Roberts, Ph.D., senior scientist at the Allen Institute. “The ACTN-2 cells display in the same way a gene that is active in heart cells, and the signal appears in contractile heart fibers. This means that there is an indicator that heart cells have been properly made. When the cell can be observed while living, and molecular features are revealed, lots of information can be gleaned.”

Mission to the International Space Station

The mission is part of NASA’s SpaceX 33rd commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. Back in 2023, astronauts from Axiom Space flew cells from the Allen Institute to the ISS to study the effects of microgravity, as part of another Cedars-Sinai project.

Other key players in this first-of-its-kind endeavor include Axiom Space, which is a private space infrastructure developer in Houston; and BioServe Space Technologies in Colorado, who created the “plate habitat” that will house the cells. The NASA crew includes Zena Cardman and Jonny Kim, medical doctors and biomedical scientists who are first-time astronauts.

In the fall, the organoids will be sent back to Cedars-Sinai investigators who will then analyze their size, shape, genetics, and other factors. If successful, this mission could propel science to stratospheric heights.

“A dream of mine is to have a lab in space that is parallel with the labs that we have here on Earth,” Sharma said. “That would allow us to create organoids and explore biomedical applications like bioprinting of artificial heart, brain and muscle tissues in space in ways that we may not be able to on Earth.”