A University of Colorado at Boulder-based space center will fly eight experiments on the Oct. 29 mission of NASA's space shuttle Discovery, which marks the return to space of former Mercury astronaut John Glenn.
BioServe Space Technologies, a joint venture between NASA, ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder and Kansas State University, will undertake a variety of industry-driven, life-science experiments on the 10-day spaceflight of Columbia, said David Klaus of aerospace engineering sciences, BioServe's mission manager for the flight.
The experiments will take place inside the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus, or CGBA, a suitcase-sized device designed and built at ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder that has flown on 11 space shuttle missions, including two four-month stints on Russia's Mir Space Station. The CGBA contains hundreds of syringe-like devices for mixing fluids in space, as well as other project-specific devices.
One of the most intriguing experiments by the CGBA will be the production of microbial antibiotics, said Klaus. The antibiotics experiment is being flown for the third time on the shuttle in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb in an attempt to learn why antibiotic production increases in the low-gravity environment provided in space.
"This is an exciting project," said Klaus. "Our past two shuttle experiments with Bristol-Myers Squibb have shown that microorganisms produced greater quantities of antibiotics in space. We want to learn how and why this growth stimulation occurs in microgravity, then take that knowledge and apply it to production facilities on Earth."
Although previous bacterial growth experiments by BioServe were carried out in test tubes, ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä faculty and students have modified the apparatus by adding a new gas exchange fermentation device. "This should provide more optimal growth conditions for microorganisms and provide additional insight into the causes of increased antibiotic productivity," he said.
The CGBA also will be used for a wide variety of other biomedical, agricultural and drug development investigations, including water purification. Since bacterial growth is more difficult to control in space, a BioServe experiment has been designed to test a new water purification resin to combat microorganisms that have become resistant to iodine disinfection.
Other experiments flying on the CGBA involve research designed to accurately control the growth of protein crystals, as well as experiments on plant fertilization with legumes in an attempt to increase crop yields on Earth. BioServe researchers also will attempt to manipulate growth hormones in plants through gene manipulation to increase the quality of vegetable crops on Earth, and perform unique research on a magnetic species of bacteria that has applications for immunology, Klaus said.
Ground-based technological upgrades include a control room in ¶¶ÒõÂÃÐÐÉä-Boulder's aerospace engineering science department to send commands up and receive data from the shuttle directly from NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, he said. "We needed to develop this capability to support future payloads now being designed by BioServe that are expected to be in operation onboard the International Space Station in the year 2000."
Additional experiments being flown on the BioServe payload include investigations of plant cell tissue cultures, said Klaus. "In microgravity, plants may produce less lignin, which creates their structure in nature," he said. "We want to see whether the available metabolic energy normally used to make the lignin can be channeled into the increased production of secondary compounds that have potential pharmaceutical applications."
The CGBA also will carry a number of fish eggs, including those of tilapia -- also known as Nile River perch-- and killifish, said Klaus. "We flew a payload with brine shrimp eggs on an earlier mission and saw accelerated development from eggs to larvae," he said. "We are hoping to see the same phenomenon with these fish eggs, then determine what causes it in order to mimic these conditions on Earth and perhaps even stimulate increased growth of commercially farmed fish."
While shuttle flights already have produced valuable data on the effects of microgravity in life sciences, agriculture and medicine, "it will be a new ball game when we have a permanent presence on the space station," said Klaus
Glenn, 77, made the first U.S. orbital flight of Earth in 1962.