NASA Wants Lab Grown Human Tissue For Space Radiation Research, Holds Contest

NASA and the Methuselah Foundation are holding a contest for scientists to grow human organ tissue in the laboratory, as per recent reports. The lab grown human tissue will be used as the raw material for analyzing the damaging environmental effects of space, such as radiation.

Called the Vascular Tissue Challenge, the contest is reportedly being held with the goal of helping NASA minimize the adverse impacts of deep space exploration. The American space agency aims to send a human mission to Mars and beyond in the future, and it is imperative to first understand and then work on methods to reduce the harmful effects of such a journey on the health of the astronauts. Therefore, studying the threatening effects of space on human tissue is crucial.

Furthermore, the study won't just be beneficial for humans making a journey to deep space but rather medical science and humanity as a whole. The research will be advantageous for the pharmaceutical industry as well as modeling diseases. The participating teams of scientists in the Vascular Tissue Challenge will also have to submit ideas for advancing the research and suggest proposals for carrying it out in the zero gravity environment aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

"The humans who will be our deep-space pioneers are our most important resource on the journey to Mars and beyond," said Steve Jurczyk from NASA. "The outcome of this challenge has the potential to revolutionize health care on Earth and could become part of an important set of tools used to minimize the negative effects of deep space on our future explorers".

Incidentally, the first three groups of scientists who can grow human organ tissue that successfully meets the requirements of the contest will win a prize money of $500,000. The rules of the contest requires that the organ tissue which will be grown in the lab has to be a minimum of 1 centimeter thickness, it should be metabolically functional as well as fully vascularized, indicating that blood vessels are present in the tissue to keep it alive.

The human tissue created in the contest will be used as models or organ analogs for conducting experiments that will test the harmful effects of radiation as well as find new methods of preventing human cell damage. The success of the contest will also mean a historic moment in the progress and commercialization of human tissue engineering and its applications for the benefit of mankind, as per reports.