Ax-2 Mission to Increase Knowledge on Stem Cell Behavior in Space

Our cells change as we age, which can lead to abnormal function and catalyze disease. It can take years for researchers to conduct studies on age-related stressors and disease progression on Earth. Space provides a unique environment that allows scientists to speed up this process and gain new insights into aging, leading to implications for the treatment of cancer and other age-related diseases on Earth.    

As part of the research activities taking place on the Ax-2 mission, Axiom Space is partnering with the Sanford Stem Cell Institute at the University of California San Diego to conduct two experiments that aim to increase our knowledge of how stem cells behave in space with the hope of identifying potential treatments for drug-resistant cancers and inflammatory diseases in the future. The Ax-2 crew will be the first to test treatments for human cancer in a space lab.

Through the Cancer in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) experiment, the Ax-2 crew will study prospective therapies for colorectal and breast cancers by testing countermeasure drugs on the International Space Station. This effort contributes to the goal of creating cellular models to predict and detect the development of cancer. Identifying early warning signs of cancer could lead to quicker intervention and potentially prevent disease progression. The experiment will feature an iteration of science previously flown on the Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1), Modeling Tumor Organoids in LEO (2022), that showed a tripling size of organoids and activation of ADAR1 – an RNA editing enzyme that allows cancer cells to clone themselves and evade the immune system.

The Space Hematopoietic Stem Cell Aging (SASHA) experiment evaluates DNA- and RNA-editing enzymes involved in mutations that may be related to the development of cancer. As part of the study, samples will be collected from astronauts before, during, and after spaceflight, to understand how the unique space environment affects blood stem cell behavior and immune dysregulation in spaceflight.  

The findings from these experiments could inform the development of predictive models for cancer and immune dysfunction-related diseases, which could have implications for space exploration and terrestrial health care. The results could also lead to the development of new drugs that could help to prevent or treat a wide range of diseases that are currently difficult to treat, such as relapsed cancer and autoimmune diseases.

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