Is The New Generation Of Drugs Being Made In Space?
By Rishi Ganesh
Amidst a global pandemic on the scale of the coronavirus, the one thing that the people of the world are looking for is a solution. But COVID, while it may seem like the only ailment on the planet at the moment, isn’t humans’ biggest problem. While COVID is very dangerous and will continue to be for some time, diseases like cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s account for a far higher death toll, with higher death rates and no cure.
However, that may all change thanks to NASA.
New NASA research inspired by the human body’s own immune system may be changing the game. Since 2017, NASA has been experimenting with monoclonal antibodies (MABs) that can mold themselves to fit anywhere in the cell, making them extremely versatile and precise while reducing possible side effects, which are usually caused when a drug affects another section of the body or the cell, resulting in atypical function which can lead to unpleasant, possibly life-threatening side effects.
This added preciseness can aid in curing cancer without triggering side effects caused by normal chemotherapy, like the weakness, hair loss, and radiation poisoning that is commonly associated with the treatment. Instead of washing over the patient, the MABs can target cancer cells, transporting the radiation treatment to specific locations in order to kill cancer cells only rather than every cell in the body.
These MABs are difficult to create, however, as a sufficient dosage takes a concentrated amount of protein crystals, which are extremely difficult to grow due to the Earth’s gravity hindering the processes required for crystallization. Therefore, it is a very time and resource-consuming process, often proving frustrating even in artificially created gravity. But Merck Laboratories took it one step further.
If artificial gravity didn’t do the trick, they would just have to get the real thing.
Aboard the International Space Station, Merck Research Laboratories conducted a series of experiments testing whether or not zero-gravity conditions in space allowed for unhindered protein crystal growth. Through the first experiment, the results were good. Protein crystals grown in the Space Station were measured at a significantly larger scale than those grown on Earth. Merck Labs then began replicating the experiment on different space shuttles, hoping to find a correlation between gravity and crystal growth.
The results looked very good. Through the ISS and 10 different space shuttles, the crystals grew at a much faster rate and held their shapes without impurity. The medicine of the future was being born. If this process can stay active, people will be able to get localized, specific treatment at a much faster rate, perhaps through a simple pill or injection rather than waiting on an IV for several hours on end. The MAB protein crystals have the potential to revolutionize universal medical care as a versatile, adaptable vessel for various medications.
However, MABs aren’t the only revolutions space has to offer. True zero-gravity conditions also have the potential to create advances in stem cell research, tissue regeneration, and increasing metabolism, making it a medical hotbed for bleeding-edge technologies and experimental treatments. Sometime soon in the future, MABs will become the main vessel for treatments around the world for previously incurable diseases.
