Project Maleth: Malta goes Space Med!

WHAT?

Project MALETH will contribute the first scientific and biomedical programme from Malta to be sent to the International Space Station. It will also be the first Maltese experimental setup to be conducted outside of the Earth’s atmosphere.

This programme, named SpaceOMIX, consists of two applications:

1. A data analysis study of the effects of a space environment on human blood and on the control of haemoglobin expression. Haemoglobin is the protein in that is responsible for carrying oxygen to the various parts of the body, being mostly expressed (i.e., coded from DNA) in cells in the bone marrow that later transform into red blood cells. Expression of haemoglobin (and therefore red blood cells) is known to decline during spaceflight, but this is a reversible process, with rates returning to normal post-flight.

2. A study of the skin microbiome of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients from Malta. A microbiome is a community of bacteria, viruses, protists and fungi living together in a particular habitat, in this case – human skin. The skin microbiome has an important role in shaping human immunity and is fairly stable over time; an altered microbiome might indicate diseases or medical conditions in the host.

Human blood with red blood cells, T cells (orange) and platelets (green). © Dennis Kunkel, Dennis Kunkel Microscopy, Inc.

WHY?

Outer space provides an environment that differs from a planetary one in several aspects, primarily regarding gravity (which is lower than that on Earth) and radiation (which is higher than that on Earth). This presents unique opportunities for exploring biological and medical processes in different conditions.

• To illustrate the importance of such an environment for research, one can take the growth of bacteria as an example. Bacteria is grown on Earth in a flat Petri dish, which is limited to two dimensions. On the other hand, microgravity in space allows the suspended bacteria to assume a three-dimensional spheroid shape, which mirrors conditions inside a human body much better than a flat plane.

Diabetic patients are prone to suffer from skin conditions, such as wounds or ulcers, as a result of an altered skin microbiome, which can complicate medical treatment. In Malta, around ten new cases of such a challenging nature appear every week, with each case requiring urgent medical attention and sometimes necessitating amputation of toes or even limbs.

Findings from Project MALETH, then, may have implications for short-term and long-term clinical problems here on Earth, such as this and others arising in the future.

Collecting skin microbiome samples. © Rhoda Baer/ National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)

HOW?

A ‘biocube’ built by Space Applications Services as part of their International Commercial Experiment (ICE) Cubes Service will house the SpaceOMIX samples and will be launched as part of the SpaceX mission SpX 23. This mission, contracted by NASA, will use the spacecraft Cargo Dragon 2 to fly the biocube to the International Space Station.

• In addition to the SpaceOMIX samples, the biocube features two cameras and an SD card containing messages, paintings, and drawings relevant to STEM from people of all ages, but especially school children. The biocube will spend 45 days in space, where daily observations through the cameras will be taking place. At the same time, the same process will be carried out in Petri dishes at the University of Malta before spaceflight and after spaceflight, offering opportunities to compare and contrast the three experiment setups for comparative genomics with the samples.

• Other research made possible by SpX 23 will include experiments from the NASA Glenn Research Center as well as five experiments pertaining to the Students Spaceflight Experiments Program.

• Each Cargo Dragon spacecraft is designed to be re-used at least five times, and it will be recovered from the Atlantic Ocean after splashing down at the end of the mission.

Comparative analysis of the retrieved samples and the Petri dish samples will deliver the anticipated results, including those resulting from an exploration of the samples’ molecular genetics and bacterial gene expression.

The biocube with the two applications on a stand featuring the Project Maleth logo. © Joseph Borg

WHO?

A team of experimental haematology and molecular genetics specialists from the University of Malta is responsible for the concept and the content of the biocube. The team is spearheaded by Prof. Joseph Borg, president of the Malta Association of Biomedical Scientists.

Other collaborators include Afshin Beheshti, from the NASA Ames Research Centre, and Christopher Mason, from Weill Cornell Medicine in the United States.

WHEN?

The biocube with the samples will be launched from the United States on the 18^th of August.

This will occur at Cape Canaveral in Florida, a site which also served as a launching pad for other historically significant space missions such as Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab.

Illustration of the SpaceX Crew Dragon and Falcon 9 rocket during the company’s uncrewed In-Flight Abort Test for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. © SpaceX