Space Plants: Looking for Useful Medicinal Properties
angoLab-1 filled with 21 experiment units (7 per each of the three payload cards). During the first month of installation, power safety, data streaming, and heat mapping experiments will be conducted.
Media Credit: NASA
What happens when you take plants out of the normal gravity conditions they’re used to and send them to space? Can growth in a 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. environment induce changes in plants that could have important medical applications on the ground?
International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station) National Lab implementation partner(Abbreviation: IP) Commercial companies that work with the ISS National Lab to provide services related to payload development, including the translation of ground-based science to a space-based platform. Space Tango is working with a research team from the University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy on studies aimed at examining the effects of space on the medicinal properties of plants.
In response to environmental stress, plants have the ability to produce compounds that help them adapt in order to survive. Because plants have evolved in gravity conditions on Earth, the microgravity conditions on the ISS National Lab act as a stressor and could trigger the production of useful compounds.
The University of Kentucky College of Pharmacy research team is examining different types of plants, including Madagascar Periwinkle, a plant that produces compounds that have anti-cancer properties, and Valerian, a plant that produces compounds with anti-anxiety properties. In germinating seeds onboard the ISS National Lab, the team can investigate whether microgravity induces beneficial changes in the medicinal properties of the plants. The investigations are conducted in SpaceTango’s CubeLabs, small experimental modules that fit into the TangoLab facility onboard the ISS National Lab.
You can learn more about the team’s research in this video. For more information about how researchers are using the unique environment of the ISS National Lab to advance research on plant physiology and behavior, see the related resources below.