How Microgravity on the ISS Is Advancing Stem Cell & Space Medicine Research

Susan Wise: Hi, and welcome to Stars Launch Pod: Space Technology and Research Sciences, brought to you by StarSciences.org, where we connect, collaborate, and accelerate. I’m your host, Susan Wise, and joining us is Ms. Stefanie Countryman, the director of BioServe Space Technologies and a research associate with the Ann and H.J. Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences Department at the University of Colorado Boulder. Hi, and welcome to the program.

Stefanie Countryman: Hi Susan. Thanks for having me.

Susan Wise: I am excited to talk about what you’re doing—BioServe, space technology, your partnerships, all the different companies you work with—

Stefanie Countryman: Mm-hmm.

Susan Wise: —and all the great things you’re doing in space. It’s so exciting. I’m excited to talk with you today. So tell us a little more about you. We want to know what you’re currently working on to further the space industry.

Stefanie Countryman: Okay. Well, I’ve been working with BioServe for the last 25-plus years. What we really do is launch life science experiments to the International Space Station. These experiments can be cell culture studies, experiments looking at different types of bacteria—just all kinds of studies that examine living organisms and how they function in space. It’s a pretty exciting field to work in.

Susan Wise: So it’s things that can help us in space but also right here on Earth.

Stefanie Countryman: Mm-hmm. Yes. For example, right now we’re working on a project looking at expanding hematopoietic stem cells in space. These are cells that come from the human body—either from umbilical cord blood or drawn from an adult’s blood. On the ground, when they collect those cells, there usually aren’t enough to treat different types of cancers, which is what they’re used for—specifically blood cancers. Research has shown that in a microgravity environment, if you expand those cells, they seem to grow to a higher quality and higher quantity, which could potentially make hematopoietic stem cell therapies much more effective for people with cancer here on Earth. So it’s a really exciting project.

Susan Wise: That is lifesaving. That’s life-changing. It’s amazing.

Stefanie Countryman: Yes.

Susan Wise: I love it. You all have done so many things. Share with us maybe one of your “aha” moments.

Stefanie Countryman: Well, gosh, there have been so many. It’s a super-challenging environment to work in—a microgravity environment. It’s also challenging to translate what you do in your lab on Earth, where gravity helps you with things like pouring and pipetting—

Susan Wise: True.

Stefanie Countryman: —into procedures that work in space, where there’s no pouring. One of my big “aha” moments was when we attempted to thaw mammalian cells in orbit, rather than on the ground. So many parts of that process are gravity-dependent. We didn’t know if it would work, but we figured out a way to do it successfully in space—thawing the cells, putting them into a plate, and getting them to grow just like they would on Earth. It was a very cool achievement.

Susan Wise: Was it a moment where everything came together and you thought, “Oh, this is going to work”?

Stefanie Countryman: Yes. We work directly with the crew. We have a room where we talk with the astronauts on the Space Station and guide them step-by-step. The whole process took about three or four hours. When we finished, we thought it had worked, but we didn’t know for sure until two days later. We imaged the cells using a microscope on the station, and we could see live cells all over the plate. That was the moment. It had never been done before, and we did it successfully.

Susan Wise: Wow. Congratulations. That’s awesome. I love what you’re doing. You mentioned challenges, and I always say challenges are opportunities to grow. What was one of your biggest challenges, and how did you overcome it?

Stefanie Countryman: There have been many, but one of the biggest was working with a team from the University of Washington to launch what they call an “organ-on-a-chip.” It’s a small plastic, credit-card-sized chip that holds cells. But on the ground, the equipment needed to support it fills a six-by-eight-foot lab bench. We had to shrink all that down to the size of a shoebox. It took two years. One of our lead engineers designed a very compact system that could integrate the organ-on-a-chip, the media needed to keep the cells alive, and all of the necessary operations once it reached orbit—and then preserve the cells and bring them home so the science team could analyze them. It was a huge achievement.

Susan Wise: Like Apollo 13—you have to make all this fit into this using only this.

Stefanie Countryman: Yes, exactly. And with all the safety requirements we must follow. It was absolutely one of our biggest achievements.

Susan Wise: That’s so exciting. Do you have any advice you’d like to share with our listeners?

Stefanie Countryman: The biggest thing we’ve learned over the years—and it sounds so simple—is testing. Lots and lots of ground testing before going to space. Because once you get to space, you really only have one opportunity. If something goes wrong, the crew can help with a few things, but you can’t just walk down the hall and fix it. So we always tell our partners: we’re going to test far more than you expect, so that when we launch, we feel as confident as possible. Test, test, test. Not glamorous, but critical.

Susan Wise: The types of people you partner with—are they pharmaceuticals, medical, that kind of thing?

Stefanie Countryman: Yes, a wide variety. We work with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to launch different experiments—we’ve worked with Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, and smaller startups like Angiex. We also work with university professors researching cancer treatments, drug development, or understanding biological systems like the cardiovascular system. And we partner with government agencies such as NIH and the National Science Foundation. So it’s a wide range.

Susan Wise: We have our eyes on the Moon. We’re going back, and spending that amount of time in space affects the body—bone, muscle, all of that. Are you focused on experiments that help astronauts?

Stefanie Countryman: Yes, absolutely. While most of our research focuses on benefits for people on Earth, it also applies to astronauts. For example, we did research with Amgen on countermeasures for bone loss. They used microgravity as an accelerated model. On Earth, a woman with osteoporosis may lose about 1% of bone in a year; in space, that can happen in a month. That allows faster drug testing and development. So yes—definitely.

Susan Wise: All my adult life I’ve been an inch and a half taller than my sister, but for the first time, she’s now taller than me by that same inch and a half.

Stefanie Countryman: Wow.

Susan Wise: It’s scary.

Stefanie Countryman: Yes. You can use microgravity to develop countermeasures for people on Earth, but also for the crew, because they definitely lose bone and muscle the longer they’re in microgravity.

Susan Wise: I love what you’re doing, Stefanie. This is great work.

Stefanie Countryman: Thanks.

Susan Wise: I want to ask about a passion project. I know you’re passionate about your work at BioServe, but do you have a specific passion project, past or present?

Stefanie Countryman: I do. We do all this technical work with stem cells, bacteria, and more, but we’ve also done research targeted toward K–12 students. We flew experiments where kids had kits in their classrooms that were similar to the spaceflight habitat and could follow along. Two of my favorites were the jumping spider experiment and the monarch butterfly metamorphosis.

We launched a jumping spider to see whether it could catch prey in microgravity. The theory was it wouldn’t be able to—but she adapted and succeeded.

We also launched monarch larvae to see if they could form a chrysalis and emerge as butterflies. They did. Both experiments were fascinating—not just watching the organisms adapt, but watching kids learn about biology and space at the same time.

Susan Wise: Inspiring those young minds. I love that. What a great passion project.

Stefanie Countryman: Yeah.

Susan Wise: Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I’d love to visit again sometime—maybe for an hour if you’ll have me. You’re doing great work, and we’ll catch up.

Stefanie Countryman: Yes, thank you.

Susan Wise: Thank you so much. Be sure to join us where we connect, collaborate, and accelerate. We’d like to invite you to join StarSciences.org for a free one-year membership—just use promo code FRIENDS321. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and subscribe. Until next time, keep looking up. Thank you, Stefanie.