Brain organoids, a type of three-dimensional aggregates created from human stem cells, will be sent for the first time to International Space Station (ISS)in order to study the effects of weightlessness on the aging process and to help scientists better understand certain diseases.

The “Brain Aging” experiment was designed by its scientists Pasteur Institute and her Paris School of Biotechnology Engineering (SupBiotech) in collaboration with the National Center for Space Studies (CNES). The brain organoids will be sent to the ISS tomorrow Friday on a Dragon rocket that will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Astronauts already on the station, in orbit around Earth, will receive dozens of brain organoids, those small, lab-created cellular structures sometimes called “mini-brains.”

Organoids are replicas of human tissues, made in the laboratory. Since 2020 when the research started, thousands of different “mini-organs” have been produced: brains, hearts, bladders… which have the advantage of being three-dimensional and therefore better mimic the functioning of human organs.

The mini-brains will help scientists study the aging process at the cellular and molecular level, something that can’t be done in living people except through continuous biopsies, explained Miria Ricetti, the head of the Laboratory of Molecular Mechanisms of Pathological Aging, of the Institut Pasteur. Their space mission has a dual purpose: to observe the effects of microgravity and their prolonged exposure to cosmic radiation, which will provide scientists with information about the health of astronauts in the context of a future long-duration manned space mission. The second goal is to better understand the mechanisms of certain genetic diseases responsible for premature aging in children. For this reason, organoids created from cells of patients with progeria will be put into orbit.

The mini brains will remain for 33 days in the ISS, under the supervision of the astronauts. They will then return to Earth to be compared with the “control group,” the organoids that will remain in the lab.

“It is a first step. If we show it works, we’ll be able to replicate it over longer periods of time,” said Frank Yates, a researcher at SupBiotech.