Looking at Muscle Loss With a Lab-on-a-Chip
A view of NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor holding the Microg-Rx CubeLab. The Culturing of Human Myocytes in Microgravity: An In Vitro Model to Evaluate Therapeutics to Counteract Muscle Wasting (Culturing of Human Myocytes in Microgravity) experiment aims to better understand muscle growth and repair in microgravity. Muscle wasting occurs in people on Earth with cancer, HIV/AIDS, heart failure, rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss). This investigation may support development of countermeasures and treatments for muscle wasting from these conditions.
Media Credit: NASA
This past weekend, crew members onboard the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) worked on an investigation by Micro-gRx to validate the company’s “lab-on-a-chip” cell culturing system to study human primary skeletal muscle precursor cells and muscle wasting in microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment.. The experiment recently launched to the space station on the Northrop Grumman commercial resupply services (CRS)-10 mission.
NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor works on the Micro-gRx investigation onboard the ISS.
Media Credit: NASA
Learn more about this ISS National Lab investigation in the video below and in the ISS360 article “Modeling Muscle Atrophy in Microgravity: Testing Lab-on-a-Chip Technology.”