TAMPA, Fla. — Tucked away on the upcoming Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) will be an experiment from two Moffitt Cancer Center investigators.
Drs. Patsy McDonald and Derek Duckett, who also founded Cadw Therapeutics, are partnering with SpacePharma to study stress and DNA damage caused by space travel with the hope of developing therapies to prevent it.
The "self-contained" experiment will hitch a ride to the International Space Station on April 6 as part of the first private astronaut mission to the orbiting laboratory. The mission's four-person crew will liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
“Space flight has significant deleterious consequences on the human body,” said McDonald, associate member of the Cancer Physiology Department at Moffitt. “Understanding how to mitigate the negative health effects of microgravity, radiation and stress from space flight is essential for safe space exploration.”
Here's how it will work. Moffitt says the "automated lab in a box" will use SpacePharma's "lab-on-a-chip" technology to perform cell-based experiments aboard the ISS.
"The goal is to determine whether genomic damage experienced during space travel is linked to the silencing of a specific gene, beta-arrestin1," Moffitt wrote.
According to officials, beta-arrestin1 has been found to play a role in chronic stressed-induced DNA damage which can carry profound human health consequences. The experiment will investigate the impacts of microgravity and low orbit space flight on the gene.
“We’re hoping to use the information learned during this mission to develop pharmacologic interventions that could be used as a prophylactic to combat the harsh environment endured during space and long-haul flight,” said Duckett, chair of Moffitt’s Drug Discovery Department.
Moffitt says financial support for the experiment was provided through two grants from Space Florida’s Florida-Israel Innovation Partnership Program.
