There is no such thing as the unknown – only things that are temproarily hidden or misunderstood. The words of Captain James Kirk from the renowned series Star Trek will be recognizable to many a scientist. We humans are, after all, incredibly curious by nature. And so is German company ATMOS, which plans to enable research with organoids in space.
To make this possible, ATMOS is building unmanned space transport capsules that will be attached to rockets used for i.e. commercial flights. Petri dishes containing human stem cells are placed in the capsules before launch, which will then grow into organoids (or miniature organs).
Once in space, the cells automatically grow into a 3D shape thanks to the absence of gravity. ATMOS founder Sebastian Klaus explains in this article: “When you take a petri dish and you put a couple of stem cells in there, what happens on Earth is they grow into a pancake because of gravity. If you do the same thing in microgravity, they grow into a three-dimensional little ball.”
Anne Burgers, science and innovation officer: “Organoids play an important role in replacing animal research. That opportunities are now being created even in space to grow them just underlines how important they are.”
Major step for preclinical research
With the three-dimensionally developed mini-organs, drugs could be tested animal-free as early as the preclinical testing phase. This will not only save a lot of animal testing, but will also speed up the drug development process. In other words: better for both humans and animals!