Cancer research blasts off: Materials behave differently in lower gravity allowing for accelerated research

Cancer treatments could be from out of this world. Literally.The low gravity environment of space offers various qualities that can speed up research on how cancer cells grow and behave, as well for developing new molecules for treating cancer. Indeed, one advance already used in clinical practice is an improved version of the drug Keytruda (pembrolizumab) which is used for several cancers.Prior to work on the International Space Station (ISS), Keytruda was administered via a line or port, said Bill Nelson, an administrator at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) But “aboard the station, our astronauts were able to develop methods for protein crystal growth that made it possible to administer Keytruda in a new way, by an IV injection,” which can be administered in as little as 20 minutes, he said. Dr. Nelson was a panelist on a recent virtual event hosted by NASA on cancer research in space.Last year, NASA got a boost in funding for space-based cancer research as part of the U.S> President Joe Biden's Moonshot Cancer program. The ISS orbits Earth every 90 minutes, and since November 2000, nearly 4,000 different experiments from various disciplines representing more than 5,000 researchers from over 100 countries have been conducted. This includes commercial, academic and government users. And, it offers a unique environment for conducting research, with a major area of interest being medicine. Originally, a part of that was to study how space affects astronauts. Microgravity leads to bones loss, changes in vision and eyeball shape, has cardiovascular effects and more. Plus there are the effects of radiation. As an example, in 2009 Canadian astronaut Bob Thirsk performed experiments and gathered data for the Canadian Cardiovascular and Cerebrovascular Control (CCISS) project. CCISS was launched largely because of the dizziness and faintness phenomenon experienced by astronauts.While these are topics explored in the interest of space travel, there are a huge number of applications to people on Earth.“We explore space to explore the heavens and to improve life here on Earth—that includes attacking this dread disease (cancer),” said Dr. Nelson stated— and that’s why NASA is involved in president’s Moonshot program.In brief there are three categories of research that work well in space: protein crystal growthnanoparticle and tissue engineeringstem cells.In many ways, it’s a better place to work with and grow 3D tissue models.In Earth’s gravity, “it’s harder to grow 3D models of certain tissues, stem cells, and many organ tissues also known as organoids. But in microgravity, we’re able to grow these kinds of tissues and use them as testing grounds for stem cell related cancer screening and cancer detection. We can also test different drugs on cancer infested organoids,” said Dr. Nelson.According to Michael Roberts, the ISS currently has multiple experiments from various companies and academic investigators that are focused on improvements in nanoparticle drug delivery. Roberts is chief scientific officer of the ISS and the vice-president at the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space. Nanoparticles can be used to improve the targeting efficiency of cancer drugs, chemotherapies or cell based therapies. And they can be used “as frameworks or structures on which you can build, for example, cartilage on which to repair tissue damage.”Why is space special for doing this work?In microgravity “there is an absence of bouncy driven convection. Heavier material will not settle out to the bottom in liquids, while lighter stuff won’t always float to the top. That enables biological systems, cells at multiple levels or whole organisms including humans, to respond to that change in environment,” he said.The effects of that, even at the molecular level are profound.“A recent discovery is those effects can lead to an accelerated onset and progression of physiologic changes, and changes at the molecular level that replicate the onset of some diseases and their progression,” he said.That acceleration of cell activity opens more doors in research.Dr. Catriona Jamieson from the University of California at San Diego and her team made tumor organoids, or mini tumor models, and sent them up to space where the astronauts collected and transmitted images. “We saw from those that cancer in space can triple in size in just 10 days on the ISS. It an accelerating environment,” she said. She is also a cofounder of Aspera Biomedicines.What’s different about cancer in space? “It starts to undergo that cloning, that replication potential that is there lying dormant and gets unleashed under conditions of stress or inflammation, and that’s what we see in space. Those symmetric divisions which define a stem cell, that’s what we see in cancer and that’s what we see on the ISS happening quickly,” she said.It was seen that the more intense inflammatory and stress signals in a space environment could trigger cancer initiation, precancer and precancer progression to full blown cancer. After seven missions to the ISS, she and her research team decided to study two drugs, rebecsinib, and fedratinib, to test their effects on these processes.Rebecisnib is an experimental drug and the researchers are working to create a pill form. Fedratinib was already approved by the FDA for myelofibrosis before being sent to the ISS. But in newer work “we see activity in breast cancer organoids albeit to a lesser extent than rebecsinib, which is a more potent ADAR1 inhibitor,” she told the Medical Post in an email.She explained that the cloning capacity in a cancer stem cell is different than what is seen in a normal stem cell. “A cancer stem cell can’t switch (cloning) off. Normal stem cells know how to regulate it,” she said. As a result of the work in space, the researchers were able to identify a cancer kill switch which opens up new doors for research and possible treatments.Several Canadian teams are involved in cancer research on the ISS. According to the Canadian Space agency, some examples include:A group from the Canadian Nuclear Laboratories looking at oxidative stress and inflammatory responses in rodents exposed to space radiation;A Health Canada team looking at biologically-based radiation dose assessments for astronauts;A group from Simon Fraser University that investigated genomic damage on long duration space flights on C. elegans.There is also the McGill University’s newly created Space Medicine Interest Group. One of the founders, medical student Adi Mithani, was quoted as saying “The goal is to increase awareness of the field of space medicine to medical students, in terms of how they can take their education in medicine and not only apply it to people living in austere environments, but also to regular people here on Earth. So, it’s not just space, but also people living in remote communities.”

Cancer research blasts off: Materials behave differently in lower gravity allowing for accelerated research

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