NASA has selected Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for a Phase 1 in Space Production Applications (InSPA) award that takes advantage of the microgravity environment of space to develop and validate a platform and strategy for manufacturing of vascularized and perfused liver tissue. The proposed work will leverage several proven benefits of microgravity for manufacturing clinical scale liver tissue constructs with intrinsic vascular networks that allow perfusion and integration into the recipient’s peripheral circulation for the treatment of liver disease.
WFIRM is partnering with Axiom Space and BioServe Space Technologies on the groundbreaking initiative. The effort proposed for this award is a continuation of the work begun by two WFIRM teams as part of NASA’s 2021 Vascular Tissue Challenge, in which they won first and second place for creating metabolically active thick liver tissue that retained function for thirty days.
With the new award, WFIRM will study various 3D bio printed designs of liver tissue constructs to be evaluated in microgravity and biomanufacture optimal constructs for potential use in human clinical trials. Once validated, this technology could be used to produce multiple tissue construct types, including kidney and pancreas, among others.
NASA’s InSPA program issues a call for proposals annually through Focus Area 1 of NASA Research Announcement NNJ13ZBG001N “Research Opportunities for ISS Utilization”. Areas of interest for InSPA include tissue engineering and biomanufacturing as well as advanced materials and manufacturing. The 2021 Vascular Tissue Challenge is a NASA Centennial Challenge led by the agency’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama manages Centennial Challenges, which is part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.
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