Within the program Human and Robotic Exploration, ESA is planning to develop and install on the International Space Station an advanced 3D cell culture facility, in place of the existing Biolab, provided with a 3D bioprinter module, connected to a 3D cell culture module (3D biosystem, 3D BS). The facility is currently under development by an ESA selected industry consortium (IC) lead by the EU company Redwire (Belgium), and its production and testing will be divided into different parts and stages.
The Regenerative Medicine Technologies (RMT) Lab has been selected, with other three labs in EU, for carrying out all tests on the prototypes, thanks to its knowhow in Biofabrication and 3D cell cultures of different tissue types.
The prototypes’ production has already started in 2023 and the testing phase will start in 2024. In the first stage, a first prototype, namely Reference Model (RM), including basic features for 3D cell culture in space, will be tested, starting from the beginning of 2024. Such prototype should be tested for compatibility with standard cell culture procedures and for assuring correct functionality in the future installation in the ISS. After this initial phase of preliminary validation, a more advanced prototype, namely Science reference Model (SRM) will be produced, taking into account all the feedbacks from validating labs and including all the features of the complete flight module (FM), such as the bioprinter and other 3D cell culture elements. These further features will be also tested in the laboratories on ground before launch of the FM. Finally, support from validating labs will be needed also after launch, to conduct validation experiments also in space assuring a correct functionality of the facility, before making it available to the scientific community.
The test activities will be carried out by personnel from the involved laboratories, partly directly at the reference labs and partly at Redwire in Belgium, when involving non-transportable items. In particular, the activities that will be performed in the first stage will deal with the assessment of device functionality and safety (e.g. verify compatibility of the materials with cell culture reagents, verify leakproof connections during culture ecc.) and of basic culture module compatibility with cell culture (e.g. verify cell viability after culture in the device, maintenance of their phenotype). In the second phase, with the more advanced prototype, we should test the possibility to print muscle tissue, starting from different bioinks and source cells, maintaining cell viability and phenotype. Furthermore, advanced culture moduli such as the one providing electrical stimulation, perfusion and tension, will be tested for their functionality (e.g. to test if they are able to induce cell alignment and/or differentiation, testing contractility ecc.). In the final phase, after the facility has been installed on the ISS, preliminary experiments will have to be conducted to validate, and control the whole procedure from tissue bioprinting to tissue culture on the ISS, remote monitoring through live microscopy and return of the samples to ground. Since ESA will not provide any coverage for these activities, the requested budget will allow to cover the costs for involved personnel (a senior bioengineer researcher for device testing and experiment planning and a junior biologist researcher/technician for their execution), consumables and travels to external facilities.
