Redwire Space to launch bioprinting project to the International Space Station

Redwire Space to launch bioprinting project to the International Space Station (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — Redwire Space plans to send a project to the International Space Station next month to test printing human cells and tissues in sustained microgravity.

The Jacksonville-based company’s BioFabrication Facility will be used to print knee cartilage tissue. By working in lower gravity, the printed tissue should be able to mature and strengthen without collapsing under its own weight during the printing process, the company believes.

The printing facility is the work of Techshot Inc., a company founded in 1988 that Redwire acquired a year ago.

Before the acquisition, it had sent more than a dozen payloads to space, including four operating on the International Space Station.

In 2019, the company printed a partial human knee meniscus as well as a large volume of human heart cells during its first trial of the BioFabrication Facility in space. With this mission, it is returning to the microgravity lab with new capabilities, such as the ability to temperature control each print head, in an effort to further human tissue printing research.

Redwire has set the goal of printing an entire knee meniscus through preparation using the BFF, which will then be returned to Earth to a lab where it will be studied.

“The research being conducted with BFF has exciting implications for the future of human health,” Redwire Executive Vice President of In-Space Manufacturing and Operations John Vellinger said Tuesday on a conference call arranged by NASA. “Besides providing a clear benefit to our lives on Earth, advancing this technology on the International Space Station now is a great way to prepare for work on the commercial space stations of the future, which could be outfitted with critical research technology such as BFF.”

The mission slated for Nov. 6 will be carrying roughly 800 kilograms of hardware and samples to support 40 different scientific investigations. Other projects being launched include work by a team from the University of California, San Diego, looking at how burned soil reacts with air and water in microgravity and an investigation from Emory University that aims to use microgravity to speed up the growth of cardiac muscle cells derived from human stem cells.

Redwire’s 3D bioprinter is about size of three small microwaves. Ultimately, the goal of the testing is to use 3D bioprinting technology to alleviate organ shortages for transplant patients, by printing replacement organs and tissues.