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Why Develop Vaccines In Space?

ISS crew members usually conduct experiments associated with the development of vaccines. Why develop a vaccine in space?

Because the lack of gravity makes it far easier to grow protein crystals. Pharmaceutical researchers rely on protein crystallization, the process by which protein molecules—the building blocks of both viruses and vaccines—are made to form crystals, solids in which the various atomic components are arranged in regular, repeating patterns. Once the proteins crystallize, their structural properties can be carefully scrutinized using X-ray crystallography. This analysis is critical because a protein’s function is dependent on its structure.

The problem is that growing protein crystals is a lot easier said than done. The more complex the protein, the harder it is to crystallize. This probably has something to do with the effect of gravity, which puts stress on the atomic structures of these complicated molecules. But in the near weightlessness of space growing protein crystals is a much simpler task. Not only is it relatively simple to crystallize proteins, but the crystals grown can be much larger—10 times larger. And space-grown crystals are typically free of clumping and other imperfections that complicate the analysis process.

The ease of crystallization isn’t the only benefit of celestial drug research. It’s also known that microbes—a key component in antibiotics—grow much more efficiently in microgravity environments. In addition, genes can be more readily spliced with foreign proteins, which has led some researchers to believe that edible vaccines could be manufactured in space: The measles vaccines of tomorrow could be delivered via potato, rather than injection.

posted by: kyawoo at 21:00 | link | comments |
space science, space station

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