Can space serve as a better environment than the Earth to produce anti-cancer drugs? The answer to this intriguing question could result from an experiment just launched from Florida’s Cape Canaveral in a small mobile laboratory for the Israeli company SpacePharma to the International Space Station. 

The lab, which includes cancer cells and the first nanomedicine drug approved by the US Food and Drug Administration – Doxil – is aboard a Falcon 9 launcher from the SpaceX company. The pioneering drug was unveiled in 1995 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) by Prof. Yechezkel Barenholz and Prof. Alberto Gabizon. 

Starting about a quarter of a century ago, the two esteemed researchers and their teams pioneered the development of a new therapeutic approach, based on the delivery of the cancer drug doxorubicin via liposomes to improve the efficacy and reduce the toxicity of this drug.

Liposomes – micro- or nano-scopic man-made spheres composed of lipids (fats). The spheres are formed when certain lipids are mixed with a water-based solution. If the solution contains a drug, it becomes encapsulated in the liposome. 

Alternatively, some drugs can be remote-loaded into preformed liposomes; for this a driving force that acts like a nano-pump is needed, an approach introduced and implemented by the scientists in the development of Doxil.

The Hebrew University team’s “trick” was to make drug-loaded nano-liposomes that selectively reach the tumor site, being powerful enough to reach the tumor site intact and loaded with a sufficient level of doxorubicin to be therapeutically effective. 

The multidisciplinary space experiment is aimed at examining what happens to nanomedicine in space and micro-gravity. It is supported by the Israel Space Agency in the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology and by the Hebrew University. 

The tiny drug-bearing particles prevent its dispersal into the heart and life-threatening damage to it and improve the drug’s arrival in the cancer cells. Because the physical and chemical properties of the drug membrane and the cancer cell membrane vary under micro-gravity conditions, the researchers want to see if the drug penetrates the cancer cells in space better. The absorption of particles into cells could change, as could the rate of release of the active substance. They also want to know whether the drug inside it will be protected as it is protected on Earth.

As producing liposomes that trap and release targeted drugs is expensive and the cost of launching experiments to space has dropped, it could be more efficient and less inexpensive pto roducee them in space if the experiment in the space station is successful.

In recent years, with the advancement of diagnostic methods, more and more space diseases have been discovered that affect astronauts. Those who spend time in space, as in the International Space Station, lose muscle and bone mass. There is also an accumulation of fluid in the head that causes a change in brain structure and stress on the optic nerve. The micro-gravity conditions affect whole organs, the organization of the organ tissues, the individual cell, the fibers within the cells and the expressions of the genes. 

This is SpacePharm’s fourth launch to the International Space Station, but it is the most complex launch to date because it is a very sophisticated lab weighing only about four kilograms, which allows remote control, explained Yossi Yamin, the CEO of SpacePharma, 

In addition, with plans in the coming years to send astronauts to Mars — where they may be exposed to carcinogenic radiation – for long periods, producing anti-cancer drugs in space could be used to treat them.