Human cells rocket into space to explore the secrets of ageing
A sample of human muscle cells grown in a laboratory will be blasted into space on Tuesday to learn more about ageing.
A sample of human muscle cells grown in a laboratory will be blasted into space on Tuesday to learn more about ageing.
The cells will be flown on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket that will take off from the Kennedy Space Centre in only the second UK-led scientific mission to the International Space Station.
The MicroAge mission, funded by the UK Space Agency and led by researchers at Liverpool University, has placed the laboratory-grown cells into 24 3D printers no bigger than a pencil sharpener.
They will be stimulated electronically to make the cells contract, with the contractions monitored to see how they behave.
Muscles lose mass and strength as we age. Astronauts’ muscles have been observed to weaken during prolonged periods of weightlessness in space.
It is hoped that scientists will be able to discover why our muscles lose strength and find ways to prevent age-related muscle wastage. The cells will return to Earth next month.
The first UK-led scientific mission to the ISS was last June, when scientists from Nottingham and Exeter universities sent thousands of tiny worms in an attempt to understand more about muscle wastage. A third mission, led by Strathclyde University, will be launched next October to study how weightlessness affects complex fluids.
British Science Minister George Freeman said: “As we get older, our bones and muscles get weaker but scientists don’t fully understand how this happens.
“The research of our scientist astronauts on muscle loss in the microgravity of space is helping identify potential cures for musculoskeletal disease, which causes agony to millions.”
Malcolm Jackson, of Liverpool University, said: “Ageing is one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century and we will learn a great deal about how muscle responds to microgravity and ageing from the data we obtain from this study.
“The team has had to work extremely hard over the last three years to overcome the many challenges of sending our science into space.
“For example, the electronic equipment necessary to undertake these studies usually fills a large desk but we have managed to shrink this to the size of a pack of cards. This development work … represents an exciting innovation that could have a wider application in the future.”
The Times
The trauma of Trump – can we still do business with his America?
In this sorry week for freedom and decency, with the world’s stability and order seemingly in peril, the West must not give in to despair.
Xi readies army of tech hotshots to take on US
The Chinese president spoke to the bosses of the largest technology companies, such as Huawei and DeepSeek, asking them to step up at this ‘prime time’.