Just after 8:30 ET on Tuesday night a Commercial Resupply Services mission to the International Space Station (ISS) launched carrying 20 payloads of a diverse set of research projects to determine the benefits of working in microgravity. One of the projects, designed by Mayo Clinic and ClinImmune scientists in collaboration with space technology platform companies Sierra Space and BioServe Space Technologies, will conduct research on the ISS to determine if stem cell production in space can improve cancer treatments for patients on earth.
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) have long been used to help patients who have received chemotherapy to regenerate the healthy cells that have also been destroyed via the treatment. This method of transplanting HSCs collected from a healthy donor’s bone marrow of blood into a matched recipient has been effective, but is not without risks.