High-flying experiment: Do stem cells grow better in space?

Researcher Dhruv Sareen’s own stem cells are now orbiting the Earth. “At least a part of me in cells can go up!” The experiment is the latest research project that involves shooting stem cells into space. Six earlier projects from the U.S., China and Italy sent up various types of stem cells — including his team’s study of the effects of microgravity on cell-level heart function, said Dr. Joseph Wu of Stanford University, who directs the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute. There are no approved therapies using the kind of stem cells being sent to space or others derived from them, said Jeffrey Millman, a biomedical engineering expert at Washington University in St. Louis. If they are able to figure out how to make billions of cells in orbit, Svendsen said, “the impact could be huge.” A HIGH-FLYING FUTURE During the same cargo launch, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, sent blood stem cells to the space station, a repeat of an experiment they did last year.