Catalyst Awardee

Project Description

Microgravity as a model for studying sarcopenia and drug screening

Ngan F. Huang, PhD | Associate Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Stanford University; Thomas Rando, MD, PhD | Director of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center; Philip S Tsao, PhD | Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University
Competition Sponsor:  National Academy of Medicine
Awardee Year: 2024

With aging, skeletal muscle undergoes progressive muscle wasting known as sarcopenia. Sarcopenia is an aging-related syndrome associated with impaired muscle formation, as well as increased risk of frailty and poor health outcomes. Efforts to identify drug targets are hampered by the slow pace of its progression. Given the unique qualities of microgravity to accelerate the process of aging and muscle disuse, a tissue engineering approach to model sarcopenia in microgravity aboard the International Space Station National Laboratory (ISSNL) is a novel platform for testing potential drugs over a short period of time. We propose an engineered skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity platform for screening drugs that reverse sarcopenia using genetic and protein analysis. This project takes advantage of an upcoming flight in 2025 to perform drug screening aboard the ISSNL. The objective is to apply an established platform composed of engineered skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity for screening drugs that reverse sarcopenia by enhancing muscle formation. We hypothesize that a customized muscle-on-a-chip drug screening platform in the setting of persistent microgravity will accelerate drug discovery by identifying targets that promote muscle formation and a genomic signature approaching that of healthy muscle. Accordingly, Aim 1 will test the hypothesis that Earth-based studies in microgravity will refine the selection of potential drug compounds for testing aboard the ISSNL. In Aim 2, drug screening experiments will be performed concurrently by space astronauts in microgravity and by our personnel on Earth, followed by the collection of all samples for combined post-flight analysis on Earth.

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