Southern California, US 2 April: The University of Southern California along with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is ready to launch a set of fungi to the International Space Station (ISS) through the SpaceX flight at Cape Canaveral on April 8, 2016. The main focus of these scientific studies is to investigate the development of medicine by fungi in space.
According to the sources, the fungi used for sending to space is the Aspergillusnidulans and the specimen will be sent in the outer space at ISS in the frozen state. While transporting the temperature of the stored fungi will be maintained at 39.2 degrees Fahrenheit. Professor Clay Wang of Southern California University of the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab along with his team is the coordinator of this project which will be launched through SpaceX flight on 8 April 2016.
At the ISS, the fungi will be defrosted to provide a perfect temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit for culture and its growth for seven days. Later professor Clay Wang of Southern California University will receive the fungi back for further investigations in May 2016
Professor Clay Wang says that the ability to produce medicine in space is the next step for NASA as the mission for the human to Mars usually needs 1-3 years of duration while any medicines expire at some date. So being able to produce drugs in space will be further beneficial for any space exploration in future.
The researcher also claimed that fungi can generate secondary metabolites only when they’re put under stressful conditions. While space is itself are very harsh environment harsh that can activate the production of those molecules for creating the drug.
The teams believed that as astronauts out in space suffer diseases like lose bone mass which they require drug at any cost so A. nidulans could be important cargo missions at space.
