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Space

Doctors will grow human tissue on the International Space Station

By Adam Mann

15 August 2018

Astronaut on a treadmill on the ISS

Astronauts must exercise in space to avoid muscle loss

NASA

Two projects aiming to engineer muscle fibres and liver tissue on board the International Space Station (ISS) could help develop innovative biomedical treatments, and perhaps one day see full human organs grown in space.

Researchers have studied the effects of microgravity on different types of cells for decades, but this would be the first attempts to cultivate large volumes of human tissue in space.

The first study will look at muscle grown in a bioreactor—a nutrient-rich chamber—in order to assess new drugs for muscle loss, a natural ageing process that…

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