According to the latest report, astronauts may grow and eat genetically modified plants in space in the future to avoid diseases caused by long-distance space flights. Researchers at the UC Davis School of Engineering have created a genetically modified lettuce that produces drugs that combat bone density loss in microgravity environments.
Bones are constantly finding a balance between growth and resorption in response to changes brought on by injury or exercise. If you stay in microgravity for too long, this balance will be upset, bone resorption will outpace growth, so astronauts will experience bone loss. Bone loss can be treated with a hormone drug called parathyroid hormone, but it requires regular injections.
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Kevin Yates, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Davis, collaborated with Professor Karen MacDonald and Associate Professor Soman Nandy to develop transgenic lettuce that expresses a fusion protein that converts parathyroid Adrenaline binds to a human antibody protein.
Moreover, this fusion protein can exist stably in the human bloodstream, and can also be extracted from lettuce by astronauts and purified. The team is currently assessing how much drug these lettuces produce, which leaves contain the most, and the best time to pick them, among other things.
Planted in space
Nandy points out that there are many benefits to growing plants in space. A mission to Mars may take years. And experience with the International Space Station has shown that having astronauts grow their own food can have a significant morale boost.
Furthermore, long flights also require carrying medicines, such as a parathyroid hormone. But traditional medicines expire mid-flight, so astronauts have to find ways to replenish new ones. If the drug is carried in the form of genetically modified plant seeds, it can not only reduce the load but also provide astronauts with a fresh source of medicine.
The drug is best taken orally so that astronauts only need to eat lettuce to supplement the parathyroid hormone. But if that doesn’t work, they should also be able to extract and purify the lettuce for medicine.
