Article about the JeWell platform being launched into a zero-gravity atmosphere — also reaching new heights as Singapore’s first large-scale biological space endeavour. Read here too: https://www.mbi.nus.edu.sg/news/zero-g-wells-taking-mechanobiology-into-space/
Our future is in space. But space is also dark, dangerous and full of unknowns. With the searing cold, scorching radiation, smothering lack of air and shortfall of gravity, every space expedition carries its perils. How can we continue pushing the limits of space venture without anyone pushing up the daisies?
Singapore’s maiden biological space endeavour may just present a way out. In September of 2022, the first zero-gravity flight with thousands of living “passengers” was launched. Who are these passengers? Organoids, which are essentially artificial and miniature versions of actual organs. As “avatars” of their original counterparts, they allow scientists to observe how organs function under certain conditions, which is useful for disease studies or drug testing.
This was only possible with the interest and invention of lead scientist Dr. Anne Beghin and her colleagues at the Mechanobiology Institute, National University of Singapore. Wielding their multidisciplinary expertise, they jointly forged the “JeWell” platform, a ground-breaking all-in-one system consisting of special microscopic containers (or wells) that can grow, store and image thousands of organoids rapidly and all at once. Capable of producing and maintaining viable living tissues at an unprecedented scale, it could potentially supplant mass animal testing one day.
Dr. Beghin began brainstorming for a direction to take the JeWell platform. With a highly prolific system in her hands, equipped with her knowledge of forces from her work in mechanobiology, and her deep adoration of space, it dawned on Dr. Beghin that the JeWell platform would make the prefect instrument to investigate the effects of zero-gravity on our tissues. Just like how it could be a prospective alternative for animal testing, it could also serve as a proxy for live space trials as well, showing great promise for the future of medicine and space travel.
Taking a stab in the dark with her scientific vision, Dr. Beghin looked around for partners and advice for her project. Ultimately, she found a collaborator at the University of Zurich (UZH) Space Hub, who saved her a seat on their airplane for their 6th Swiss Parabolic Flight Campaign — an aerospace programme which takes experiments, literally, to a whole other level, into an environment devoid of gravity.
With the gravity part down, Dr. Beghin with her fellow JeWell collaborator and MBI colleague, Dr. Gianluca Grenci, had to source for a method for not only the secure transport of the JeWell platform from their lab in Singapore to the space hub in Switzerland, but also to ensure its stability during the zero-gravity flight itself. Joining forces with Cellbox Solutions, they built a special portable incubator for the mission, which could nest the JeWell platform in a constant 37ºC setting with carbon dioxide supply and a microscope, no less. Cells (the “seeds” for growing organoids) would be planted into each microscopic JeWell container, which is then potted in the portable incubator.
Looking into the portable incubator, housing the JeWell platform
After months of preparation, Dr. Beghin and Dr. Grenci, with their portable incubator on board, were ready to take to the skies. Their plane began its ascent on an incline before nose-diving, plunging everything on board into weightlessness. For more than a minute, the scientists and their samples within were severed from the hold of gravity. Dr. Beghin described the sensation as disorienting, for you could not make heads or tails of yourself and the only indication of any direction was the through the cockpit window — in which you could see the ground drawing closer as the plane careened towards the earth.