Experimental Design for Pre-Clinical Animal Model Study in Microgravity

The Rodent Research program at NASAs Ames Research Center (ARC) has pioneered a new research capability on the International Space Station in less than four years and has progressed toward translating research to the ISS utilizing commercial rockets, collaborating with academia and science industry, and training crew for research purposes on-orbit. Animal models are the foundation of pre-clinical research to understand human diseases and evaluate new therapeutics. Advancement in alleviating ground diseases such as muscle atrophy and osteoporosis can come from the study of similar conditions that are known to occur as a result of exposure to the spaceflight environment. During the completion of the flight phase of two missions, our practices, hardware and operations evolved from tested to developed standards, which successfully translated the studies from ground to space. Results from these studies contribute to the science community via both the primary investigation and banked samples that are shared in publicly available data repository such as GeneLab. Every completed mission sets a foundation to build and design greater complexity into future research and answer questions about common human diseases on ground and in space. Here, we present methods developed for the translation of a rodent experiment to the ISS including a description of hardware and kits available for investigators and a discussion of operational constraints.