Living human cells will launch aboard a European research rocket next month as South Australian researchers use space to investigate cancer in a radically different environment.
The mission, led by Adelaide company Cambrian Defence & Space in partnership with Dr Nirmal Robinson from Adelaide University’s Centre for Cancer Biology, is investigating how human stem cells respond to microgravity and whether those changes could reveal new insights into cancer progression and earlier detection.
The initiative, supported by the South Australian Government’s Space Collaboration and Innovation Fund and Australian and European partners, represents a significant milestone for Adelaide-led space oncology research and Australia’s growing capability to fly sophisticated biomedical research in space.
Microgravity acts as a biological stressor, potentially exposing cellular responses and vulnerabilities that are difficult to observe in humans and animals under normal Earth conditions.
The living cells will fly in a specialised Australian-owned, Swedish-developed reusable payload, engineered to maintain the experiment at approximately 37°C throughout the mission.
After returning to Earth, the cells will be recovered and analysed to determine how they responded to microgravity.
The mission builds on Cambrian Defence & Space’s previous biological microgravity R&D experience and its international partnership with SSC Space Sweden, for which Cambrian is the primary representative for microgravity services in Australasia.
The capability provides a repeatable pathway for Australian researchers to take experiments from the laboratory to space and back for analysis.
The reusable payload can be adapted for future medical, pharmaceutical, botanical, agricultural and materials research, extending the capability well beyond this cancer mission.
“This mission is about more than sending cancer cells to space,” according to Tiffany Sharp, CEO Cambrian Defence & Space.
“It is about creating repeatable access to microgravity for Australasian research and giving our scientists access to an extraordinary environment in which to accelerate discovery,” she said.
“Cambrian’s experience across multiple microgravity R&D missions provides the capability to make that pathway to space practical, affordable and repeatable.”
Dr Nirmal Robinson, Head of the Cellular Stress and Immune Response Lab at Adelaide University, said microgravity places human cells under a form of stress that cannot be fully reproduced on Earth.
“This potentially reveals cellular responses and vulnerabilities that remain hidden under normal conditions,” he said.
“This mission gives us a unique window to examine how cancer-related processes respond to microgravity and what those changes may tell us about disease progression and early detection.
“Working with Cambrian Defence & Space allows us to turn this unique environment into a repeatable research platform, Opening new possibilities for cancer research from Adelaide.”
The mission is expected to launch in Sweden in early October, lasting 10-12 minutes.