Picture: Hallym University
The Hallym University Chuncheon Sacred Heart Hospital, together with a research team led by ENT specialist Park Chan-heum, is sending a bio-lab into space. The payload, called “BioCabinet,” will be launched aboard Korea’s third medium-sized satellite on the Nuri launch vehicle and is intended to demonstrate how tissue can be produced directly in space using 3D printing and used for medical experiments. The background question is how diseases can be treated when a rapid return to Earth is neither practical nor economically viable.
BioCabinet is an autonomous experimental system weighing 55 kilograms with dimensions of 790 × 590 × 249 millimeters. Inside are a bio 3D printer and an incubator for controlled stem cell differentiation. The system is designed to produce artificial heart tissue in microgravity and to monitor its functionality over an initial mission period of 60 days; depending on cell status, an extension to up to one year is planned.
The payload comprises two biological modules with different approaches. The first module prints heart tissue from reprogrammed somatic cells that have been converted into induced cardiac muscle stem cells. These cells are expected to self-organize into contracting heart tissue structures and exhibit functions very similar to real cardiomyocytes. This makes it possible to study drug responses and disease-like conditions in weightlessness without relying on animal models or explanted tissue.
The second module uses stem cells derived from the tonsils. Tonsil tissue is considered an easily accessible source with a high stem cell count, robust immune function and broad differentiation potential. In BioCabinet, the key question is whether these cells can reliably differentiate into vascular cells in space. If successful, potential applications could range from vascularized implants to therapeutic concepts for vascular diseases on space missions and on Earth.
Park Chan-heum said, “Space development does not generate revenue right away, but it is a ‘field that lives on dreams’ that produces technologies with massive ripple effects in the future, like CT (computed tomography), MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), and the internet,” adding, “Continuous national investment is needed, and with this study as a starting point, we will open a new chapter in Korea’s space biomedical engineering field.”
With BioCabinet, the team aims to create a starting point for taking biomedically oriented 3D printing research from Korea into orbit and, in the long term, for more closely integrating space medicine with clinical applications.
