Cedars-Sinai To Send Skin Stem Cells into Space this Month

To understand microgravity's impact on the production of stem cells and stem cell-based products, researchers from Cedars-Sinai are sending an investigation to the International Space Station as the first in a series of experiments that will evaluate the process of reprogramming skin cells (fibroblasts) into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) capable of producing a variety of tissue cells—heart, brain, and blood—that could be used in regenerative medicine therapies. The project is sponsored by the ISS National Lab and funded through NASA's In-Space Production Applications program.

The skin cells will be used to study microgravity's effects on the early stages of transfection—the process of reprogramming adult cells into stem cells. A key part of transfection is introducing the DNA that will reprogram the cells, and the researchers will closely observe this as part of the experiment

“One of the biggest limiting factors in clinical therapies here on Earth is that it's always hard to make enough high-quality stem cells needed for the treatments,” said Arun Sharma, an assistant professor at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “So, if we can leverage microgravity to grow more stem cells than we could on Earth, that could be a huge benefit for patient care.”

The stem cells could be used in a number of ways, such as in disease modeling, as a means to test new therapeutics, and in stem-cell therapies. For this investigation, the team will send both stem cells and skin cells to the space station for a period of five days. Using the stem cells, the researchers will examine how quickly the cells divide and will analyze their proliferation.

Through this investigation and others that will follow, the team aims to better understand how growing stem cells in space could be harnessed for valuable biomanufacturing applications, Sharma said.

“Previous stem cell experiments on the space station have actually shown that there can be an improvement in how these cells divide in microgravity, as well as a change in their pluripotency, or their ability to be a stem cell,” he said. “If we can grow cells two- or three-fold better than what we can do on the ground, that's really exciting not just for basic science for using these stem cells but also for clinical applications.”

The project will be part of the Ax-2 mission, which is targeted for launch from Kennedy Space Center no earlier than May 21 at 5:37 p.m. EDT. This mission will include more than 15 ISS National Lab-sponsored payloads. To learn more about all ISS National Lab-sponsored research on Ax-2, please visit our launch page.

“We know that stem cells are very adaptable to whatever environment they're put into,” Sharma said. “Their genes change very quickly, within hours. So, the changes we see in those five days may be enough for us to get really good scientific data.”

More Beauty & Home Care Programs in Space

As a public service enterprise, the ISS National Lab allows researchers to leverage its multiuser, making its research resources available to support non-NASA science, technology and education initiatives from US government agencies, academic institutions, and the private sector.

Estée Lauder,  Procter & Gamble and Colgate-Palmolive’s PCA Skin have been involved in previous ISS endeavors.

Colgate-Palmolive/PCA’s investigation leveraged the acceleration of skin aging in microgravity to help create and validate an engineered tissue model to serve as a platform for testing potential products to protect aging skin. 

Procter & Gamble in 2021 tested a detergent in space.

Estée Lauder partnered with the International Space Station (ISS) in 2021 to fund research into sustainable plastics alternatives. The Sustainability Challenge: Beyond Plastics challenge winners were announced in 2022.