At 14:30 today, the "Huayi-1" rocket carrying 0.03 μl of mouse adipose stem cells was successfully launched in Inner Mongolia, the satellite telemetry was normal, and the "Tinder-1" space biological experiment technology verified that the payload worked normally, opening Up China's commercial biological spaceflight journey.
"Tinder-1" is developed by Rocket Pie (Beijing) Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. in cooperation with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Ruijin Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and is the first biological space payload funded by private enterprises in China. The payload carrying the "tinder" of life, after flying in suborbital space for a period of time, transmitted data such as temperature, humidity, pressure and satellite attitude of the cell culture chamber back to the ground, and conducted a space environment mapping for commercial biological spaceflight.
The Huayi-1 rocket was launched in Inner Mongolia.
Foreign space pharmaceuticals see business opportunities
Commercial aerospace refers to the aerospace industry that adopts a market-oriented mechanism and takes commercial profits as the primary goal. Compared with developed countries such as the United States, China's commercial aerospace started late, but today, There are more than 200 commercial aerospace enterprises in China, covering rockets, satellites and other supporting and overall manufacturing, as well as satellite measurement and control, ground equipment manufacturing, communication satellites and remote sensing satellite operation services and other fields.
The rocket company established last year aims at the field of biological aerospace. Min Changning, chief engineer of the Rocket Faction, who was a member of the Standing Committee of the Science and Technology Committee of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation and the chief engineer of satellite engineering, introduced that biological aerospace is to carry out life science, biomedicine and other research in space, and use the special environment of space microgravity, occasional gamma rays and other cosmic rays to obtain experimental results that are difficult to obtain on the ground.
For example, the US biopharmaceutical giant Amgen Company used an animal culture module to test three drugs under development in mice in a space microgravity environment, and developed "disumab" for the treatment of osteoporosis and bone giant cell tumor. For another example, Merck has carried out a number of monoclonal antibody crystal experiments on the International Space Station, using the microgravity environment to obtain a uniform crystalline suspension, and developed a broad-spectrum anti-tumor drug of "Pymbrosemumab", which can treat more than ten kinds of tumors such as melanoma, non-small cell lung cancer, and kidney cancer.
Bio-payload satellites can conduct biological experiments in space.
In this cutting-edge technology field that includes space pharmaceuticals, private enterprises see business opportunities. "China has also carried out a lot of biological space experiments in recent years, but national space missions are usually launched once every six months or so, which cannot well meet the experimental needs of biological spaceflight." Min Changning said, "Rocket Faction is building a three-in-one system of rapid response, returnability and flight, and strives to provide a high-quality and efficient space biological experiment service platform for domestic and foreign institutions." ”
It is expected to solve the problem of stem cell therapy
The private company develops launch vehicles and biosatellites in Beijing and biological payloads in Shanghai. The bioload research and development team is led by Yan Weixin, an associate researcher at the School of Mechanical and Power Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who led the space biological experiment technology verification payload designed by Yin Xiaoyu, the designer of "Tinder No. 1", and other team members, and was successfully launched today, completing the test launch mission with a flight altitude of 250 kilometers.
This load is very small, only 10 cm long, 10 cm wide, 11 cm high, and consists of a cell culture chamber, environmental monitoring sensors, control boards, communication interfaces and other parts. Since the mission was designed to do technical verification, only 0.03 microliters of mouse fat stem cells were perfused in the culture chamber. What is the living environment for these stem cells in space? Environmental monitoring sensors collect data on the temperature, humidity, pressure, flight attitude and acceleration of the cell culture chamber and transmit the data to the satellite's communications module, which in turn transmits it back to the ground via radio waves.
"Tinder-1" space biological experiment technology verification payload
Why send mouse adipose stem cells into space? Wang Lei, deputy director of the Department of Orthopedics of Ruijin Hospital affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine and chairman of the Sports Medicine Branch of the Shanghai Medical Association, said that at present, domestic stem cell therapy is still in the scientific research stage, and there are many difficulties in the process of clinical application, including how to maintain the differentiation of stem cells and how to make stem cell differentiation targeted. The microgravity and occasional gamma-ray environments of space are expected to help scientists solve these puzzles. "In the field of sports medicine, we want to study the differentiation trend of mouse adipose stem cells in space and their inducing factors to see if they will differentiate into cell species related to tissue repair, such as chondrocytes, tendon cells and other somatic cells that are difficult to regenerate." This basic research is very important for the development of tissue repair techniques. ”
Two biological experimental payloads will be launched
The research team of Ruijin Hospital intends to use technical means such as cell staining to observe the differentiation trend of mouse adipose stem cells in space. However, Tinder One is not able to achieve this, and its mission is to map the environment for cell space travel.
Yan Weixin revealed that he is leading the team to develop biological payloads for cell morphology and molecular biology research. The specific design of the cell morphology experimental payload is about to be completed, and it is planned to complete the commissioning of the equipment in the first half of next year and launch in June-July next year; the molecular biology experimental payload is expected to complete the commissioning of the equipment in the second half of next year and launch at the end of next year or the beginning of 2023.
Around March next year, Rocket Pie will release open source information on cell morphology experimental payloads, invite domestic and foreign universities, scientific research institutions and enterprises to declare cell morphology research projects, and the selected project team can let "Tinder II" carry the cell samples they want to study to fly into space. "Tinder No. 2" adopts microfluidic chip technology to integrate the sample preparation, reaction, separation, detection and other operation units in life science experiments into a micron-scale chip to automatically complete the whole process of analysis. Under the support of this "high concentration" technology, "Tinder II" is expected to provide platform services such as cell culture, staining, microscanning, metabolite analysis and other platform services for 8 experiments, and transmit experimental data back to Earth.
"Don't underestimate this load, because to keep the cells alive, it has a power supply system for temperature control." Yan Weixin told reporters that the rocket carrying the biological payload is equipped with a power supply system, so that the stem cells are in an ultra-low temperature environment during the launch stage. Once in a predetermined orbit, the bioload's power supply system will thaw the stem cells, allowing the temperature of the culture chamber to reach 37 °C. At the same time, the temperature of the cell culture medium is controlled at 0-4 °C, and the satellite ambient temperature is controlled at 15-35 °C.
"After the advent of the cell morphology experimental load, we can study the differentiation mechanism of mouse stem cells in space, and strive to transform the research results into clinical treatment technology with the help of the major national scientific and technological infrastructure of translational medicine located in Ruijin Hospital." Wang Lei's words were full of longing.
The researchers perfused mouse adipose stem cells into the Tinder-1 payload.
The "Tinder-3" molecular biology experimental load is also under development, which can provide platform services such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction) nucleic acid extraction, reaction and detection, and combine the cell morphology experimental load to send gene sequences, cell images and other data to the scientific research team.
The drug regulatory authorities have focused on space pharmaceuticals
Since it is a commercial aerospace, it is necessary to talk about the business model. Min Changning said that the rocket faction is developing liquid launch vehicles and re-entry satellites, and after successful research and development, it is not necessary to rent rockets and satellites, thereby greatly reducing launch costs. In terms of biological payloads, advanced technologies such as microfluidic chips allow the payload to carry more biological samples, and each launch can provide experimental platform services for multiple institutions. It is estimated that the company's future fees to the experimental institutions can cover the research and development costs of rockets, satellites, payloads, etc., and obtain large profit margins.
For the new format of commercial biological aerospace, the Shanghai Drug Evaluation and Verification Center has intervened in advance, and the staff of the center has exchanged views with the researchers of Shanghai Jiaotong University and Ruijin Hospital. As a subordinate unit of the Municipal Food and Drug Administration, the Shanghai Drug Evaluation and Verification Center pays attention to Space Pharmaceutical. In the future, if some domestic new drug research and development experiments are carried out in space, how will the drug regulatory department implement effective supervision? Are the relevant laws and regulations to be revised? Center staff said these issues are worth studying, and they will maintain communication with biospatial researchers.
Zhuang Fengyuan, an academician of the International Academy of Astronautics, believes that commercial biological spaceflight needs further support from relevant national and local departments. At present, domestic private enterprises can launch rockets and satellites, but there are still policy obstacles to the re-entry of the atmosphere of retrievable satellites, and private enterprises to carry out space pharmaceutical services, they must launch retrievable biological satellites in the later stage, so as to bring experimental samples back to earth. To this end, he suggested that the state introduce relevant policies to allow the re-entry of the atmosphere of biological satellites, and appropriately simplify the approval process of space launch sites, and provide policy and launch support for commercial space biological payloads. He also suggested that the state concentrate the advantages of many universities and research institutes to establish spatial life science laboratories in science and technology innovation center cities such as Beijing or Shanghai. Space life science is a multidisciplinary interdisciplinary field, which requires cross-border cooperation between experts in mechanical, aerospace, life sciences, medicine, pharmacy and other disciplines to provide scientific and technological support for the future development of the industry.