Tumours, Organoids,
Spheroids in Space

What is Microgravity for Personalized Medicine?

Microgravity for Personalized Medicine (M4PM) is a programme focused on 3D Tumour, Organoid and Spheroid growth in microgravity to enable the development of space-based Personalised Medicine. Set out under a partnership between Blue Horizon and Space Applications Services, and co-financed by the European Space Agency, the project aims to create both a technical model as well as a business model that replicates and enhances traditional terrestrial ones.

The way microgravity affects the behaviour and development of living organisms allows for research that cannot be conducted on Earth. The goal of the M4PM initiative is to evolve into an end-to-end service growing high quality spherical 3D tumours, organoids and spheroids in low shear conditions in Space, to better address some health and medical challenges.

These Space-grown tumours, organoids and spheroids will be used for a wide range of applications and areas of research:

Drug testing: efficacy and toxicity
Drug development: (high throughput) screening of new substances
Disease modeling (incl. study of infectious diseases)
Modeling of ageing processes
Toxicity of substances
Personalized Medicine
Regenerative medicine

The first step towards these goals is building an international community of key thought leaders that would bring their knowledge, expertise and ideas to ignite and fuel the discussion. With microgravity representing the next frontier for life sciences, Pharma & Biotech, chemical industry, academic research institutes, incubators and accelerators, will all benefit from the availability of high-quality space-grown 3D tumours organoids and spheroids.