Why Growing Transplant Hearts in Space Makes Sense
There’s a new beacon of light for transplant patients, and this time it’s coming from outer space. A space laboratory for growing human hearts may become reality in the next decade. Currently, with the shortage of organs available for transplantation, thousands of people on the wait lists die each year.
The challenge in growing hearts in a lab is the lack of reliable scaffolding that prevents the heart from collapsing in the process. Enter Techshot, an Indiana-based space tech company that believes that zero gravity could solve the issue.
Rich Boling, Techshot’s VP, believes that organs in constant freefall do not need the scaffolding. That means that theoretically, hearts can be grown in an International Space Station lab.
“Our ultimate goal is to provide a solution to an organ shortage that causes an average of 20 people per day in the US alone to die waiting for an organ transplant,” says Boling. “Getting to that point is a journey of a thousand miles, and launching our BioFabrication Facility to the ISS is that first step.”
The BioFabrication Facility (BFF), the result of Techshot’s collaboration with NASA, is a device that uses 3D printing techniques to create patches for heart repairs using te patient’s own stem cells. With the ultimate aim of growing an entire human heart in space, it is due to launch to the ISS on SpaceX mission CRS-18, scheduled for May this year.
“Our initial tests will focus on printing cardiac tissue,” says Boling, noting that the first year of the BFF will be spent checking its functionality. “After our test protocols have been completed, we’ll open the program up to outside researchers who want to use our device. Then we’ll bring BFF back to Earth and make whatever modifications may be needed to optimise it based on what we’ve learned during the test phase; then we’ll send it back up with the goal of manufacturing increasingly complex tissues.”
In 2016, Techshot successfully tested the prototype that printed cardiac and vascular structures in zero gravity using adult human stem cells. That experiment was conducted in an aircraft capable of repeatedly producing several seconds of sustained microgravity. Still, it’s going to be a long road for Techshot; the manufacturing of whole organs is not expected to begin until 2025, and regulatory hurdles may take another decade.
Although it may seem impractical, growing human organs in space makes commercial sense for a multitude of reasons. First, SpaceX is dramatically reducing the cost of space travel, and is currently focused on creating a reusable fleet of rockets able to relaunch — and reland.
Second, Boling says that “an organ manufactured in space from the patient’s own stem cells will not require anti-rejection drugs. Therefore, the overall lifetime cost for a single transplant is expected to be lower for the patient receiving an organ manufactured in space than the alternative.”
The third issue is the size of the ISS, which would place limitations on the volume of production. This is a problem tackled by a US startup Space Tango, which is working on launching autonomous manufacturing facilities, dubbed ST-42, to orbit the Earth starting mid-2020s. Each facility will measure two metres across and orbit the Earth for 10–30 days before returning with the products it has made.
“We are focusing on materials such as fibre optics, silicon carbide and carbon nanotubing,” says Space Tango chief executive Twyman Clements. “We are also focusing on pharmaceutical applications.”
A California-based startup Made In Space believes that microgravity eliminates many imperfections of the manufacturing process. Working with NASA to produce a type of optical fibre called ZBLAN, a significantly more efficient version of the traditional silica optical fibre, the company has already succeeded in producing more than 100 metres of cable.
“We’re continuing to develop the hardware to get to commercially usable and saleable quantities of fibre,” says chief executive Andrew Rush. He adds that there are alternatives to the ISS, such as creating a commercial space station, a module that connects to the space station, or even a free-flying module.
Rush believes that it is economically viable to commercially produce certain products in space — including specialist metals and human tissues. “There’s a long road between here and there,” he says, “but these technologies could ultimately help industrialise space — and give people a reason to go and live there.”
Photo credit: Roscosmos
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