How 3D Tissue Chips will help humans thrive in deep space
Science fiction or reality? Before traveling to Mars, NASA needs to learn how spaceflight is going to affect the astronauts on this demanding journey – and now they can thanks to miniature avatars.

These avatars will be able to model diseases and help determine medications that are personalized for the individuals who will embark on the uncharted journey. Astonishingly, this remarkable technology exists today and is not a work of science fiction.

A New Approach to a Daunting Process
Space travel is exceptionally challenging – particularly on the human body. In spaceflight, astronauts experience a number of stressors like bone loss, muscle atrophy, immune system changes, and other disorders that can affect their health.

Collectively, these stressors can contribute to health issues in astronauts, and as humanity continues to explore space further and longer than before, these astronauts will not have access to a fully equipped hospital or lab to treat their ailments. Enter the need for disease models, advanced drug development and methods to understand biological changes in deep space prior to the voyage.

A Promising Start
The first 3D tissue chip was introduced in 2010 and, after extensive research over the past 12 years, has shown promising results. These chips are engineered to be roughly the size of a credit card and can be used to represent various human organs by modeling both structure and function of different parts of the body – such as the lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, bone, muscle and heart. Combined, they can represent multi-organ human systems.

These miniature avatars of living organ tissues are engineered using a person’s blood or skin cells converted through induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) science to grow the tissue of interest on microfluidic chips. Researchers use these tissue chips within labs, both on Earth and in space aboard the International Space Station, to gain deeper insights into biological effects from spaceflight exposure, understand disease modeling and to predict the efficacy of potential pharmaceuticals.

“3D tissue chips mimic biological organs by providing multi-layer structures and environments that are representative of what you would find inside of the human body,” says Dr. Lisa Carnell, Program Scientist for Translational Research in NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences division.

3D tissue chips have already proven their value in current research, so scientists have high hopes for this new technology in the future. Recently, tissue chips were used to study COVID-19 helping to understand the disease pathology and to test potential therapeutics.

A Place in Space for 3D Tissues & Chips
NASA’s Biological and Physical Sciences division, the Department of Health and Human Services National Institutes of Health (NIH), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), and FDA are collaborating on the next steps in advancing 3D tissue chips even further.

Currently, 3D tissue chips are only viable for about a month limiting their use. This multi-agency collaboration aims to change that by funding nine contracts that will extend tissue viability and physiological function to a minimum of six months. By extending tissue viability, researchers will be able to test acute and chronic exposures to drugs, radiation, environmental hazards, infection, and microgravity, to name a few.

“NASA wants to send these avatars to deep space, the Moon, and Mars, so that we can understand what is happening to human biology in space and come up with ways to protect astronauts,” explains Carnell. “These are going to be really valuable for NASA, to ensure that humans can thrive in deep space on future Artemis missions.”