Kayser Space has been appointed as the industrial payload development partner for two studies, led by the University of Liverpool and Imperial College London, that are funded in the frame of the recent call of the UK Space Agency for Feasibility Studies for UK National Microgravity Experiments.
The first study is looking at ‘Mitochondria as a key regulator of muscle loss in microgravity and during ageing on earth’. In collaboration with the University of Liverpool, the study will investigate whether mitochondria are the key regulator of muscle loss in microgravity conditions and during the ageing process on earth, with the aim of helping identify the nature of exercise protocols that can contribute to modify mitochondrial changes. These could be important findings for the prevention of physical frailty and the promotion of Healthy Ageing. The study will assess the feasibility of performing the experiment in space using a micro culture chamber in an automatic bioreactor.
The second study focuses on ‘Fighting Cancer from Space’. Microgravity provides a unique external stimulus to study the reproduction, differentiation and gene expression of cancer cells. Equally, it can be exploited to study the efficacy of therapeutic drug uptake and targeted release in cancer cultures. In collaboration with Imperial College London and Yoursciencebc Ltd, and funded by the UK Space Agency, ‘Fighting Cancer from Space will assess the feasibility of performing an experiment in microgravity to study tumoral cells replication and the effectiveness of drug delivery, through an innovative class of nano-carriers based on graphene nanoplatelets doped with a nanostructured semiconducting material.