From the left: Prof. Grimm, Dr. Brungs, PD Dr. Hemmersbach, G. Aleshsheva and E. Warnke demonstrating cell culture experiments in clinostats (developed by DLR) for simulation of microgravity.
During the “Science in the City Festival” as part of ESOF (Euroscience Open Forum) in Copenhagen (21st -26th June 2014) the Gravitational Biology Group of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine exhibits their space and ground-based related studies. PD Dr. Ruth Hemmersbach, Head of the Biology Group, together with Prof. Daniela Grimm, Professor for Space Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark, and further employees and SpaceLife students show their work to the public, politicians and school classes. The visitors get insights on how to prepare and perform a space experiment focusing on the alteration of single cells (from unicellular organisms to cancer cells) in microgravity. The program will be completed with an expert talk of the astronaut Gerhard Thiele.
Clinostats, vibration platforms, flight hardware for parabolic flights and centrifuges built and provided by the Gravitational Biology Group of the Institute of Aerospace Medicine are the strong basis for the already successfully performed space experiments (SimBox 2011; CELLBOX - 2014) and for the preparation of upcoming experiments such as SPHEROIDS (2015) on the ISS.
The Principal Investigator Prof. D. Grimm studies cancer development (thyroid and breast cancer) and tissue engineering (cartilage, artificial vessels) under conditions of real and simulated microgravity, applying proteomics, genomics and metabolomics investigations. Two SpaceLife students are currently supervised by PD Dr. Hemmersbach and Prof. Grimm: Ganna Aleshcheva performs her thesis on cartilage tissue engineering (Aleshcheva et al. Plos One 2013 Nov 11;8(11):e79057) and Elisabeth Warnke works on the device comparison of the clinostat and the Random Positioning Machine using poorly differentiated thyroid cancer cells as a tumor model (Warnke et al. Cell Commun. Signal. 2014 May 10;12(1):32).
Team from science and industry presenting the topic “Cells in Space” at ESOF (DLR, EADS Astrium, Universities of Aarhus, Magdeburg, Lucerne).
Further information:
http://esof2014.org http://scienceinthecity.dk/en/organisation/daniela-grimm http://scienceinthecity.dk/en/event/11-lift-cells-space-meet-expert-0