NCATS’ Lucie Low to Discuss Tissue Chips in Space with The Scientist Magazine

Today at 4 p.m. ET, Dr. Lucie Low, scientific program manager at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), will join The Scientist magazine for a Facebook Live interview. In the interview, Low will discuss NCATS’ joint Tissue Chips in Space initiative with the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) U.S. National Laboratory. She also plans to talk about the tissue chipA tissue chip, or organ-on-a-chip or microphysiological system, is a small engineered device containing human cells and growth media to model the structure and function of human tissues and/or organs. Using tissue chips in microgravity, researchers can study the mechanisms behind disease and test new treatments for patients on Earth. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has a multiyear partnership with the ISS National Laboratory® to fund tissue chip research on the space station. investigations that recently launched to the ISS National Lab on SpaceX’s 17th commercial resupply services mission(Abbreviation: CRS mission) A CRS mission is a cargo resupply mission contracted by NASA to deliver supplies and research to the International Space Station on commercial spacecraft as part of the CRS contract with three commercial companies. As part of CRS missions, experiments currently return to Earth on SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that splash down in the ocean..

Tissue chips are small devices engineered to grow human cells on an artificial scaffold to model the structure and function of human tissues and organs. 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., tissue chips have the potential to accelerate pathways for understanding the mechanisms behind disease and developing new treatments.

To learn more about tissue chips and the NCATS Tissue Chips in Space initiative, see the ISS360 article “Tissue Chips Will Soon Head to Space” and the related links below!