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Appendixes
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7-22
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A
Future Biotechnology Research
on the International Space Station,
Executive Summary:
BACKGROUND AND SCIENTIFIC SCOPE OF NASA PROGRAMS
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) manages research programs in two areas
of the rapidly expanding field of biotechnology: protein crystal growth and cell science. The protein
crystal growth work focuses on using microgravity to produce higher quality macromolecular crystals
for structure determination and on improving understanding of the crystal growth process. The cell
science work focuses on basic research that contributes to understanding how the microgravity environ-
ment affects the fundamental behavior of cells, particularly in relation to tissue formation and the effects
of space exploration on living organisms. The National Research Council's Task Group for the Evalua-
tion of NASA's Biotechnology Facility for the International Space Station was formed to examine and
evaluate the use of the International Space Station (ISS) as a platform for research in these two areas. In
this report, the task group offers a variety of recommendations and suggestions for improving the NASA
biotechnology research program. It believes these changes are necessary if the NASA program is to
fulfill the potential for scientific discovery and impact that is also outlined in this report.
Protein Crystal Growth
The task group heard a great deal about experiments to date in NASA's macromolecular crystallography
program. The results so far are inconclusive, and the impact of microgravity crystallization on structural
biology as a whole has been extremely limited. At this time, one cannot point to a single case where a
space-based crystallization effort was the crucial step in achieving a landmark scientific result. In many
of the cases that have so far been listed as successful, the improvements obtained have been incremental
rather than fundamental. In addition, the difficulty of mounting simultaneous efforts to produce the best
1Note: Reprinted from Space Studies Board, National Research Council, 2000, Future Biotechnology Research on the
International Space Station, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C.
93
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APPENDIX A
possible crystals both on the ground and in space has limited the ability of researchers to make the
comparisons between microgravity and Earth crystals that would be necessary to demonstrate that the
microgravity environment can produce superior crystals.
Finding: The results from the collection of experiments performed on microgravity's effect on protein
crystal growth are inconclusive. The improvements in crystal quality that have been observed are often
only incremental, and the difficulty of producing the appropriate controls limit investigators' ability to
definitively assess if improvements can be reliably credited to the microgravity environment. To date, the
impact of microgravity crystallization on structural biology as a whole has been extremely limited.
Despite the lack of impact of microgravity research on structural biology up to now, there is reason to
believe that the potential exists for crystallization in the microgravity environment to contribute to future
advances in structure determination. Today's ground-based protein crystallization projects are increas-
ingly sophisticated, and yet the diffraction characteristics of crystals of many important targets are still
suboptimal. Improvements in diffraction that move a system from the margins of structure determination
to well beyond that boundary will have a significant impact on the ability of the resulting structure to
provide important insights into biological mechanisms. All research on protein crystallization in space
has, up to now, been done under suboptimal conditions (short-duration experiments, insufficient vibra-
tion control, etc.), so the improved conditions for research provided by the ISS have the potential to
produce much better results.
Finding: While enormous strides have been made in protein crystallization in the last decade, it is still
the case that there are very important classes of compelling biological problems where the difficulty of
obtaining crystals that diffract to high resolution remains the chief barrier to structural analysis of the
crystals. It is here that the NASA program must look to maximize its impact.
In order to engage the research community, NASA must focus its support on programs that are develop-
ing technologically innovative equipment and encaging in the structure determination of crystals with
important biological implications. While past NASA-supported research on the crystallization process
has not been without value, NASA's priority should now be to resolve the community's questions about
the usefulness of protein crystal growth in the microgravity environment for tackling important biologi-
cal questions. Until the uncertainty about the value of space-based crystallization is resolved, a program
of this fiscal magnitude is bound to engender resentment in the scientific community.
Although many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have participated in microgravity crystal-
lization research, not one has yet committed substantial financial resources to the program. This is likely
to remain the case until the benefits of microgravity can be convincingly documented by basic research-
ers and until facilities in space can handle greatly increased numbers of samples in a much more user
friendly manner.
Cell Science
NASA's cell science program focuses on studying the influence of low gravity on fundamental cell
biology as it relates to tissue formation and on providing insight into the effects of microgravity on cell,
tissue, and organ system function, especially as it might affect participants in space exploration.
Finding: It is appropriate for NASA to support a cell science program aimed at exploring the fundamen-
tal effects of the microgravity environment on biological systems at the cellular level. Results from such
basic research experiments could have a significant impact on the fields of cell science and tissue
engineering. However, the specific important questions within cell biology that can best be tackled on
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APPENDIX A
the ISS do not seem to have been defined yet. Narrowing the broad sweep of the current program may
focus instrument development efforts and accelerate progress toward complete understanding of the
effects of microgravity on specific biological phenomena.
A key to determining the success of cell science experiments in space will be designing appropriate
controls for experiments. In space, cell cultures experience a low gravitational environment that reduces
convection, buoyancy-driven flows, and sedimentation, and it is difficult to separate the various factors
causing differences between space- and Earth-grown samples. In addition, the tremendous progress that
has been made in three-dimensional tissue development on Earth, under unit gravity, provides a wide
range of options for ground-based experiments that may produce results similar to those achieved in
microgravity. To evaluate the relative merits of various experimental control groups and also to enable
the detailed evaluation of samples returned from space, it is important that quantitative measures of cell
and tissue structure and function be developed and studied.
Finding: Appropriate experimental controls for space-based cell science experiments have not yet been
determined. The best controls would be those that enable researchers to separate and investigate the
multiple factors including launch and reentry, effects of microgravity on the culture medium, and
direct effects of microgravity on cellular behavior that produce the changes observed in cells and
tissues grown in space. Analytical techniques that measure the molecular mechanisms underlying cellu-
lar functions will be essential to provide data for comparing proposed experimental controls and quan-
tif~ying the observed changes in cell and tissue samples.
At NASA, the work viewed by the task group was being carried out in the biotechnology section of the
Microgravity Research Division. The themes of the cell science research under way in this program
overlap with the scope of work ongoing in the NASA Life Sciences Division. The complementary nature
of these two programs needs to be recognized so that NASA personnel and external researchers can take
full advantage of the potential synergies. While there is already a sharing of flight hardware, a mecha-
nism to establish projects that are jointly funded by the Life Sciences Division and the Microgravity
Research Division should be considered.
Recommendation: The research strategies and projects of the cell science work in the biotechnology
section of the Microgravity Research Division should be more closely coordinated with the work of
NASA's Life Sciences Division to take advantage of overlapping work on bone and muscle constructs
and of potential synergies between in vitro and in vivo research projects.
INSTRUMENTATION
The International Space Station (ISS) is currently under construction; assembly is scheduled to be com-
plete in 2005. However, NASA plans to begin research on the facility as early as 2000, using equipment
that has been flown on the shuttle and that can be temporarily installed in modules of the ISS as they are
completed. As the ISS grows and more station-specific hardware is ready, the research program will
expand and more permanent instrumentation will be fitted into the ISS.
Protein Crystal Growth
A variety of equipment has already been used to grow and observe crystals in space, and innovative
hardware continues to be developed today. Having multiple laboratories involved in this process encour-
ages variety and creativity and also prevents NASA from getting locked into a single hardware approach.
However, the efforts of hardware developers need to be coordinated and communications between them
must be improved to ensure that different programs are not producing instruments with duplicative
95
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APPENDIX A
capabilities and that technological advances are quickly shared and integrated into all equipment where
appropriate.
Recommendation: The efforts of external hardware developers should be coordinated to ensure that
instruments are compatible, to prevent duplication of efforts, to ensure that technical innovations are
shared, and to facilitate input from the scientific community in defining the goals and capabilities of
protein crystal growth equipment for the ISS. NASA must also be prepared to discontinue development
projects that do not use cutting-edge technologies or that are out of tune with the most current scientific
goals.
A significant factor affecting equipment development is the instability in the budget for the ISS. If
money is repeatedly siphoned off from the hardware development work, the equipment on the ISS will
be of much lower quality than the cutting-edge hardware available on the ground, and researchers will
not be interested in using the outdated equipment or willing to entrust precious samples to it.
The equipment developed by and for NASA should aim to provide a high level of control over samples,
equipment, and procedures. On the ISS, crew time will be limited, and the human access to samples and
the feedback to the investigators enabled by shuttle trips will be infrequent, so automation and ground-
based control of experiments are essential. If principal investigators are able to make decisions about
experimental parameters and to adjust experiments in real time, the research results produced in each
experiment will be of higher quality, and involvement in the NASA program will be more attractive.
Therefore, hardware development efforts should emphasize the importance of automation, monitoring,
real-time feedback, telemanagement, and sample recovery (via mounting and freezing).
Effective analysis, preservation, and reentry of promising crystal samples is especially necessary given
the key role synchrotrons are playing in protein structure determination. If the NASA program is to
attract researchers interested in important and challenging biological problems, ISS hardware must be
designed to produce and safely return to Earth crystals of the appropriate size and quality to be analyzed
at a synchrotron. However, it is not NASA's responsibility to arrange or guarantee this next step.
Building a synchrotron beam line is expensive and would not be the most efficient use of NASA's scarce
resources. Assuming that NASA's peer review process is selecting the most scientifically rigorous and
interesting projects, successful crystallization should enable researchers to compete effectively for the
necessary beam time, and success in this extra layer of peer review should further validate the NASA
program within the scientific community.
The X-ray Crystallography Facility (XCF) being designed for the ISS is a multipurpose facility designed
to provide for and coordinate all elements of protein crystal growth experiments in space: sample growth,
monitoring, mounting, freezing, and X-ray diffraction. The task group was impressed by the XCF, by the
robotics, the remote control, and the range of experimental capabilities provided. The X-ray diffraction
module provides valuable information about whether a given crystal will diffract. This real-time feed-
back is key to making decisions about the success or failure of a particular crystallization experiment and
will help allocate scarce freezer resources by ensuring that the most promising crystals are preserved and
returned to Earth.
Finding: Automation, monitoring, real-time feedback, telemanagement, and sample recovery (via mount-
ing and freezing) will be vital for successful protein crystal growth experiments on the ISS. The XCF,
through its use of robotics and a variety of experimental and observational capabilities, provides many
of the tools researchers need to take full advantage of the microgravity environment.
The XCF is typical of several hardware development projects for NASA in that the technologies it
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APPENDIX A
employs can be applied to ground-based research capabilities as well as to those based in space. Current-
ly, however, the scientific community is mostly unaware of the quality of the automation displayed in
the prototype of the robotic crystal sample preparation system and of the combined capabilities of the X-
ray optics and the low-power source that will be used in the XCF. While commercial entities may need
to protect their proprietary work, scientists must have access to full information about all relevant
technologies and equipment for the ISS in order to effectively design and execute cutting-edge research
in space.
Cell Science
A variety of instruments are being developed to support cell science research on the ISS, including a
basic incubator, a perfused stationary culture system, and a rotating-wall perfused vessel (a bioreactor).
Overall, the NASA-funded cell science work to date has emphasized the use of bioreactors to support
three-dimensional tissue growth. While the development of rotating-wall vessels has had, and should
continue to have, a significant impact on cell and tissue culturing methodology on the ground, the task
group has a variety of concerns about the effectiveness and appropriateness of this approach for research
in the microgravity environment. Issues include the relatively small amounts of data generated per unit
volume and the difficulty of accessing the vessel on orbit.
Recommendation: Given the current status of equipment in development, finitefiscal resources at NASA,
and the limited amount of volume on the ISS, the task group recommends that future research on the ISS
should Reemphasize the use of rotating-wall vessel bioreactors, which are already established, and
continue to encourage the development of new technologies such as miniaturized culture systems and
compact analytical devices.
rl~he final determination on what sort of instrumentation will be most effective for cell and tissue growth
in microgravity has yet to be made, and it is important that the relative merits of various pieces of
instrumentation be carefully evaluated and that NASA maintain the necessary administrative and engi-
neering flexibility to adopt the most effective systems employing the most advanced technologies and to
discontinue hardware development projects that are not attuned to the most current scientific needs of
the cell science communities. Close interaction is needed between scientists and the NASA operational
personnel responsible for developing and constructing the hardware to ensure maximum flexibility and
responsiveness to evolving research goals.
Cellular systems are very sensitive to environmental perturbations. A continuous power supply to main-
tain appropriate and stable environments during experiments and for sample storage and transport is
essential to ensure valid results. A variety of systems are under development to manage power distribu-
tion, and care must be taken, particularly during ISS construction, to ensure that cell science experiments
are not compromised by power fluctuations. Another issue that will be problematic, particularly during
ISS construction but also after the station is complete, is the limited amount of crew time available for
research. The automation of routine tasks and ground-based control of experiments will be essential if
investigators are to make efficient use of the ISS platform.
Two key supports for automation and ground-based control are (1) sensors to enable physiological
control of the cell/tissue culture media environment and (2) analytical equipment to provide feedback
about the status of cell and tissue samples. The data from the sensors and the on-orbit analyses should be
transmitted electronically in real time to investigators to enable ground-based control of experiments.
Scientists on the ground then could select the most important samples for the scarce storage space and
could study the changes wrought in samples by freezing and reentry.
97
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98
APPENDIX A
Finding: The limited amount of crew time available for research-related work and the infrequency with
which investigators will have access to their samples via shuttle trips mean that automation of routine
tasks, ground-based control of experiments, on-orbit analytical capabilities, and real-time transmission
of digital data are vitalfor conducting effective cell science research on the ISS.
Refrigeration and freezer capability and transport space are not the only factors limiting the throughput
of cell science research on the ISS. Other factors that will affect the size of the program and the number
of primary publications include crew time required for the experiments, the amount and reliability of the
power supply, adequate storage space and appropriate environments for samples and supplies, shuttle
flight schedules to and from the ISS, the volume of materials to be transported, and, of course, the size of
the budget provided for cell science hardware development and research support. A window of opportu-
nity has been created by the advances in molecular, cellular, and biochemical approaches (e.g., function-
al genomics and proteomics) that are occurring as the ISS research platform becomes available. The task
group recommends that to most efficiently exploit this opportunity, emphasis should be placed on inte-
gration of the different approaches and on collaboration between principal investigators and other re-
searchers inside and outside NASA.
Recommendation: Mechanisms should be developed to enable collaborative research projects that max-
imize the amount of data obtained from each cell or tissue sample by executing multiple analyses on
each sample.
Overall Volume Allotment for Biotechnology Research on the ISS
Currently, NASA plans call for peer-reviewed biotechnology research to occur within one rack on the
ISS. This rack would be shared by protein crystal growth and cell science work. In addition, two racks
are reserved for the hardware associated with the X-ray Crystallography Facility (XCF) being developed
for the NASA Space Product Development Division. The task group considered this arrangement and
the needs of the various research communities and recommends a shift in the allotments. Namely, the
XCF rack devoted to crystal growth and monitoring should be transferred from Space Product Develop-
ment to the Microgravity Research Division's protein crystal growth program, where experiments are
selected by a centralized peer-review process and a full complement of hardware is available. The rack
currently scheduled to be shared by cell science and protein crystal growth can then be dedicated entirely
to cell science research.
The task group makes this recommendation based on several considerations. A primary issue is the basic
incompatibility between the technical needs of cell science and protein crystal growth equipment on the
ISS. The flow of gases and fluids required to maintain rigorous environmental control for cell and tissue
culture will produce vibrations that cannot be tolerated by a crystal growth facility. If cell science and
protein crystal growth equipment are housed in one rack, one or both of the disciplines will be forced to
operate under suboptimal conditions.
The task group also carefully considered the needs of the various research communities expected to use
the biotechnology facilities on the ISS. For cell science, there was concern that the amount of data and
results generated by half a rack of equipment would not be substantial enough to maintain interest within
the scientific community, whereas a full rack's worth of instrumentation could raise the program to a
critical threshold. For protein crystal growth, the research community is still uncertain about the benefits
of growing crystals in a microgravity environment, so protein sample flight programs are undersub-
scribed and commercial interest is low. By focusing the protein crystal growth research efforts on
biologically challenging problems and by emphasizing hardware capable of monitoring and preserving
samples, NASA could direct its resources to validating the program. The current volume commitment of
half a rack of general macromolecular research is insufficient to establish the value of the crystal growth
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APPENDIX A
program, but a full rack, filled with peer-reviewed experiments that employ all types of available hard-
ware and have access to the capabilities of the XCF, should be adequate to give the program a fair
chance of success. If, after several years, the results from the protein crystal growth work have provided
sufficient proof of microgravity's benefits and the academic and commercial demand for facilities on the
ISS increases, then high-throughput hardware should be developed and the allotment of space on the ISS
reconsidered based not only on the demand for macromolecular crystallography research volume but
also on the results to that point from the cell science program. Alternatively, if the work done through the
augmented commitment recommended here fails to clearly demonstrate the value of microgravity for
work on structural biology, then the protein crystal growth program can justifiably be terminated.
Recommendation: The volume allotment for biotechnology work on the ISS should be redistributed as
follows:
· The mounting, freezing, and diffracting equipment of the X-ray Crystallography Facility (XCF
should occupy one rack (as currently planned).
· The cell science work should occupy the entirety of what is currently designated the Biotechnology
Facility.
· The rack presently assigned to the XCF growth equipment and managed by NASA Space Product
Development should be officially dedicated to the peer-reviewed macromolecular research run out of the
Microgravity Research Division.
SELECTION AND OUTREACH
NASA research in cell science and protein crystal growth is funded through a collection of approximate-
ly 90 active 4-year grants; the total size of the program is roughly $19 million per year. Both ground-
based and flight projects are selected through a peer-review process that occurs every other year. While
the current grant solicitation mechanism (NASA Research Announcements, or NRAs) is appropriate, it
is inadequate to attract the involvement of the best scientists or bioengineers. The task group believes
that as the program goes forward, it would benefit from a strengthening of the outreach, selection, and
support offered by NASA to ensure that the proposals submitted for consideration are of the highest
quality and that everything possible is done to give flight experiments the best chance of success.
Both protein crystal growth scientists and cell science researchers identify themselves with a variety of
professional organizations, publications, and conferences, so NRAs should be disseminated to a wider
variety of newsletters and announcements in order to reach the multiple communities that might be
interested in using NASA biotechnology facilities on the ISS. Another approach to expanding the pool of
potential researchers would be to issue NRAs in collaboration with other federal agencies, such as the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Biotechnology Program in the Engineering Directorate of the
National Science Foundation (NSF), the NSF Biological Sciences and Regulatory Biology Divisions,
and the Department of Energy. More could also be done to provide sufficient background information
for potential investigators who are not familiar with NASA programs. More detail about the special
opportunities and constraints of space-based research as well as about the hardware available for the ISS
would make it easier for NASA to recruit new applicants for its grants and for those researchers unfamil-
iar with the NASA program to put together appropriate proposals. Access to information about failed
projects would also improve the quality of experiments designed with NRAs in mind and would increase
the likelihood of success. In general, results of projects already under way could be more broadly
disseminated; however, the task group cautions that presentations should give a balanced portrayal of
successes and limitations so as not to raise unrealistic expectations. Misperceptions about the accom-
plishments of NASA programs can also be gained from press releases that target the general public and
portray potential future applications of NASA-funded research as completed or current work. This dis-
99
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100
APPENDIX A
semination of vague or even inaccurate descriptions of its programs seriously diminishes NASA' s cred-
ibility within the scientific communities.
Recommendation: NASA should improve its outreach activities in order to involve a broader segment of
the scientific community in its biotechnology research program and to increase the number of cutting-
edge projects submittedfor funding. It needs to disseminate NRA s and program results more widely and
to provide more complete background information on failed projects and how to design flight experi-
ments.
As the pool of applicants expands, the process of evaluating proposals may also need to be adjusted.
NASA's program suffers from longer time scales than are compatible with the current pace of biotech-
nology research. For example, the 2-year gap between NRA grant submission opportunities is likely to
inhibit applications directed at the most cutting-edge research issues. Also, the delay between project
selection and flight manifesting of an experiment means that NASA does not always have the hardware
flexibility to respond to changes in the field based on new developments in ground-based research (for
example, the increased reliance on cryoprotection and freezing of crystals or the use of scaffolding for
three-dimensional tissue constructs). Finally, the uncertainties surrounding the NASA budget and the
continual schedule changes make people cautious about getting involved in a program that is unable to
reliably predict how much money will be available or the schedule for access to the ISS.
One critical step toward raising the profile of the NASA program and the quality of the grant application
pool would be to counter the current perception of recipients of NASA funds as a closed community
with a fixed membership. On the whole, external input into NASA's priorities for the biotechnology
program seems to be relatively limited. Advisory groups are composed of many of the same people that
make up the pool of grantees and contribute to the perception that NASA is not really interested in
outside input. By reaching out to a broader slice of the protein crystal growth and cell science communi-
ties, NASA would not only increase the quality of the advice it receives but would also be able to
educate a new group of people about its programs.
According to NASA, the biotechnology Discipline Working Group (DWG) is the main mechanism for
receiving advice about the strategic direction of the Microgravity Research Division's biotechnology
programs. The group is responsible for providing input to both the protein crystal growth and cell
science sides of the program, but in view of the very different scientific objectives and instrumental
requirements, having a single working group for these two disparate areas serves no real purpose. If the
DWG is split into two groups, each would be able to focus on the issues most relevant to its own
scientific area, and the increased number of slots available for each area would give greater breadth to
the groups. Care must be taken in selecting new members to ensure that there is not a bias toward those
already working with the NASA program. To attract prominent outside researchers to the DWG, the task
group suggests that the name be changed to more accurately reflect the group's role as a high-level
advisory panel with input on the scope of research announcements, peer review practices, and future
programmatic directions.
Recommendation: The separate identities of the protein crystal growth and cell science sections of
NASA's biotechnology research program should be emphasized. One key step should be splitting the
Discipline Working Group into two strategic advisory committees to reflect the different issues facing
each area of research. Prominent scientists notfamiliar with NASA's programs but aware of the broader
issues facing the fields should be recruited to serve on these committees.
An important issue for execution of research in the unforgiving environment of space is the potential for
conflict between the scientific goals of an experiment and the engineering limitations associated with a
space-based platform like the ISS. Within the biotechnology scientific community, there is the percep-
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APPENDIX A
tion that the NASA culture does not emphasize the importance of commun
ication between scientists and
operations personnel, nor does it provide tangible assurances to the research community that the execu-
tion of high-quality research in hardware designed to answer the most cutting-edge scientific questions is
a NASA priority. The community would be reassured by seeing NASA place bioengineers and biologi-
cal scientists with the appropriate appreciation of research goals and scientifically oriented reflex re-
sponses in high enough decision-making positions to ensure that research opportunities are optimally
utilized.
Recommendation: The NASA culture tends to limit communication and coordination between operations
personnel and researchers during hardware development; between astronauts and investigators before
and during experiment execution; and between decision makers and scientists about the allotment of
resources in times of crisis. To attract the best investigators to its biotechnology program, NASA must
create an environment geared toward maximizing their ability to perform successful experiments.
Protein Crystal Growth
At present, the primary goal of NASA's protein crystal growth program should be to demonstrate
microgravity's effect on protein crystal growth and to determine whether studies of macromolecular
assemblies with important biological implications will be advanced by use of the microgravity environ-
ment. To this end, the task group proposes that NASA instigate a high-profile, nationwide series of
grants to support researchers engaging in simultaneous efforts to get both the best possible crystal on the
ground and the best possible crystal in space of biologically important macromolecules. The projects
funded by these grants should address the uncertainties that have plagued the NASA protein crystal
growth program, by using the ISS for a reliable, long-term microgravity environment, by comparing
space-grown crystals to the best ground crystals, and by focusing on challenging systems and hot scien-
tific problems. Their results should definitively show whether the use of microgravity can produce
crystals of a higher quality than those grown using the best technologies available on Earth. If none of
the projects produces a space-grown crystal that enables a breakthrough for the structure determination
of a biologically important macromolecular assembly, then NASA should be prepared to terminate its
protein crystal growth program. However, if the projects supported by this high-profile, nationwide
series of grants succeed in validating the use of crystallization in microgravity to tackle important and
challenging problems in biology, demand for the facilities on the ISS can be expected to increase. At that
time, NASA should develop an external user program (similar to synchrotron user programs) in which
projects are selected by a peer-review committee that includes NASA staff representatives.
Recommendation: NASA shouldfund a series of high-profile grants to support research that uses micro-
gravity to produce crystals of macromolecular assemblies with important implications for cutting-edge
biology problems. The success or failure of these research efforts would definitively resolve the issue of
whether the microgravity environment can be a valuable tool for researchers and would determine the
future of the NASA protein crystal growth program.
Cell Science
NASA has built a very productive relationship with the NIH based on the development and use of
rotating-wall vessels. The NASA/NIH Center for Three-Dimensional Tissue Culture was started in 1994
to expose a wider community to bioreactor technology by allowing researchers from government agen-
cies (e.g., NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of the Navy) to test new model
systems for biomedical research and basic cell and molecular biology in the rotating-wall vessel hard-
ware with technical assistance from experienced NASA personnel. The task group believes that this
outreach program is an excellent idea and recommends that a wider range of investigators be reached by
opening this introductory phase of this program to extramural (nongovernment) researchers.
101
Representative terms from entire chapter:
cell science
