Louis Stodieck

Research in space, helping people on Earth: BioServe marks 100th orbital launch

Jeff Zehnder — Mon, 21 Apr 2025 20:28:51 +0000

Research in space, helping people on Earth: BioServe marks 100th orbital launch Jeff Zehnder Mon, 04/21/2025 - 14:28

Louis Stodieck remembers the first time he saw a space shuttle blast off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In April 1991, Stodieck, an aerospace engineer, was the associate director of BioServe Space Technologies, a research center at the 51�Թ��.

He had helped to design a set of test tubes that would, among other things, not spill the moment they reached space. Stodieck handed the test tubes off to a NASA crew, then watched as his work lifted away from a launchpad aboard the space shuttle Atlantis.

“I never get tired of launches,” said Stodieck, who served as BioServe’s director from 1999 to 2019 and is now its chief scientist. “The sound reaches you seconds after the launch because you’re a few miles away. When it hits you, it’s this low vibration, and you just feel it.”

BioServe founder Marvin Luttges in 1989. (Credit: BioServe)

The BioServe team poses for a photo in 1996. (Credit: BioServe)

A test tube designed for space by BioServe. (Credit: BioServe)

BioServe, which was founded in 1987, works with scientists at companies and research institutions around the world to conduct life science experiments in space.

Today, Stodieck and his colleagues are celebrating a new milestone: BioServe’s 100th launch into orbit.

On Monday, April 21, a SpaceX Dragon capsule lifted off from a similar pad in Florida en route to the International Space Station (ISS). It carried equipment belonging to three research projects, or “payloads,” developed by BioServe. They include several colonies containing billions of bacteria and algae.

“This launch is an amazing milestone,” said Stefanie Countryman, the current director of BioServe. “It exemplifies the hard work of everybody at BioServe, not just our engineers and researchers, but also our students.”

The center has come a long way since that first launch, NASA’s STS-37 mission, in 1991.

Researchers at the center have since sent a wide range of living things into orbit. They include single-celled organisms but also ants, silkworms, mice and an intrepid “spidernaut” named Nefertiti. (An 18-year-old student from Egypt proposed studying whether Nefertiti, a jumping spider, could adjust her hunting techniques in space, which she did). But BioServe has also kept one foot planted on the ground. The center’s research has generated new insights into human medical conditions like bone loss and cancer—and could even lead to facilities in the not-so-distant future that orbit Earth while making human stem cells.

“Space gives us an opportunity to look at organisms in new ways, including how they may express genes differently than they do on Earth,” Countryman said.

Single-celled astronauts

David Klaus, professor at the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, was a graduate student at 51�Թ�� when BioServe’s first launch took off. From 1985 to 1990, he worked as a shuttle launch controller at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and in Mission Control in Houston. Klaus is set to retire this spring and sees the 100th BioServe launch as a “bookend” on his career.

In those early days, BioServe’s work largely revolved around one challenge of conducting science from hundreds of miles above Earth—open liquids and space don’t mix.

“It’s not like taking two test tubes in a lab on Earth and mixing them together,” Klaus said. “With our early payloads, we were really just trying to figure out how we could manipulate biological fluids in a space environment and get some initial experimental results.”

BioServe began as a 5-year grant from NASA under founder Marvin Luttges, a professor of aerospace engineering sciences at 51�Թ��. Klaus explained that the center’s space test tubes include up to four sealed chambers. If you push down on a plunger, you can mix the fluids in those chambers one by one, all without exposing them to the air. BioServe has since sent thousands of its test tubes into space, and the basic design remains largely the same.

The team’s early research also revealed something surprising: BioServe scientists discovered that bacteria tend to grow better in space than they do on Earth—perhaps because they’re not being squished down by gravity. A handful of experiments showed that such bacteria could even be transformed into living factories for making anti-cancer drugs.

Astronaut Jessica Meir uses a microscope supplied by BioServe aboard the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

A lab 250 miles up

In the decades that followed, BioServe’s scientific equipment wound up on NASA’s four space shuttles, the Russian space station Mir and, eventually, the ISS, which entered into orbit in 1998.

Today, astronauts on the ISS can peer through a microscope flight certified and launched by BioServe and grow cell cultures in four incubators called Space Automated Bioproduct Lab (SABL) 1, 2, 3 and 4. BioServe even supplied the refrigerator where humans on the ISS store their food. On the ground, the center runs a mission operation and control center on the 51�Թ�� campus. There, BioServe staff talk to astronauts in real time on a giant screen.

“We’re replicating the sorts of biological labs that you can find at 51�Թ�� in space,” said Tobias Niederwieser, a research associate at BioServe.

Astronaut Alexander Gerst loads biological cultures into a SABL incubator on the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA)

Adeline Loesch assembles space "petri dishes" containing biological organisms in a lab on the 51�Թ�� campus. (Credit: Adeline Loesch)

The center has also collaborated with dozens of space agencies, universities and private companies over its history. On the current launch, for example, a company called Sophie’s Bionutrients based in the Netherlands contracted with the center to examine how algae produce proteins in space—which the company hopes will lead to new kinds of algae-based meat substitutes.

The center’s most lasting contribution to science, however, may be its students. Over the years, hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students at 51�Թ�� have worked for BioServe. Many have gone on to jobs at NASA and private space companies.

They include Adeline Loesch, a senior studying atmospheric and oceanic sciences at 51�Թ��. She started working at BioServe between her freshman and sophomore years. These days, she does a little bit of everything for the center: She helps to build the hardware for experiments, assembles them for flight and sits in the operations center as astronauts carry out the research.

In the fall, Loesch will start work in spacecraft and satellite flight operations for Lockheed Martin in Colorado.

“My favorite is watching the projects come full circle during the operations,” Loesch said. “Watching the research being done in real time by astronauts in space is the coolest thing ever.”

Making humans healthier from space

In the end, BioServe’s research in space doesn’t stay in space.

Roughly 24 years ago, for example, Stodieck and his colleagues designed a specialized habitat for mice to live on the ISS. His team’s research has revealed new clues to why mammals lose bone mass when they leave Earth. Those insights, in turn, helped to inspire new kinds of medications for osteoporosis in people.

Niederwieser, meanwhile, is tackling what may be an even more ambitious goal—he and his colleagues are growing human hematopoietic stem cells in space. Doctors often transplant these cells into people to treat cancers like leukemia and lymphoma.

But they’re also tricky and expensive to make on Earth. In a few early experiments, Niederwieser and his colleagues discovered that stem cells, like bacteria, may grow more freely in space. Later this year, his team plans to transport a facility for producing stem cells en masse to the ISS.

That could lead to a new vision for space—one in which stations in orbit around Earth produce various treatments for human illnesses, then send them back to patients on the ground.

“Humans have been on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and have evolved with only one gravity,” Stodieck said. “It’s really been a privilege to understand how organisms work in another environment.”

Stodieck didn’t travel to Florida for Monday’s launch, but Klaus was there to see SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket roar off the launchpad. Before he left, he was feeling wistful about seeing his old stomping grounds again.

“I'm looking forward to going down there and reminiscing a little bit,” Klaus said. “I’ll drive around and look at the base—a little 40-year flashback to where my career started.”

Off

Traditional

White

Developing cancer treatments in space

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:00:25 +0000

Developing cancer treatments in space Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/20/2022 - 09:00

Jeff Zehnder

ESA astronaut Alex Gerst working with a BioServe-designed drug metabolism experiment on the International Space Station

51�Թ�� leading effort with CU Anschutz, Mayo Clinic to use microgravity to grow stem cells

The 51�Թ�� is leading a $3.3 million project to advance stem cell research in low Earth orbit.

NASA has awarded the university’s BioServe Space Technologies a three-year grant to study the use of microgravity to grow hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). The cells, which will come from umbilical cord blood or bone marrow, show potential to treat serious medical conditions including blood cancers that require bone marrow transplants, fatal blood disorders, severe immune diseases, and certain autoimmune diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis.

“The field of bio-regenerative medicine is rapidly expanding, and there is enormous potential to treat a broad set of diseases and organ failure,” said Louis Stodieck, BioServe’s chief scientist and a research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences. “Microgravity offers us the opportunity to try to mimic the human body in a way you can’t in a cell culture dish or bioreactor here on Earth.”

Collaborating with BioServe on the research are ClinImmune Cell and Gene Therapy at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, Mayo Clinic, and RheumaGen, a company that grew out of research at CU Anschutz.

“Successful expansion could grow the cord blood resource pool as well as transplant potential,” said Louise Helander, medical director of ClinImmune. “The possibility of improving precursor HSC expansion of gene-edited cells could be the gateway to expanding bioregenerative medicine options for multiple medical conditions and will help expand access to the growing interest of providing personalized medicine in the form of HSC treatments.”

The work will include development of a bioreactor that can grow stem cells in space more effectively and efficiently than can be done in ground labs. Once grown, the cells would be cryogenically frozen and brought back to Earth as medical treatments. It is cutting-edge research with major possibilities.

“I won’t say there is anything simple about this, doing it in space, but expanding these cells on the ground they are subject to a lot of shear stresses in stir tanks that can cause damage or induce them to differentiate and turn into something that’s not useful,” Stodieck said. “In microgravity, we can grow them in an environment that’s similar to your body, where they can stay suspended and essentially mimic the environment in your bone marrow.”

BioServe has decades of experience with life science research in orbit, and currently has several similar cell culture systems on the International Space Station for other analyses.

While conducting research in space is expensive, companies like SpaceX have made major advancements in cutting costs for rocket launches, and NASA believes there is additional potential for cost reductions, making biomedical research more financially viable.

“This has to be cost competitive with ground treatment or demonstrate a significant medical advantage,” Stodieck said. “As we get further into the work, NASA also expects us to have outside investors to make the process viable. NASA’s whole premise is to create commercial opportunities in orbit using the space station, which will drive costs down.”

If the team is successful, the technology will enable cell therapy transplantation, especially in children and younger adults, where long-term bone marrow cell repopulation is critical to lifetime health.

“There are a lot of questions to answer, but that’s why we do research,” Stodieck said. “In addition, much of the technology we develop for this could also apply terrestrially. We could improve bioreactors more broadly to expand stem cell research and medical treatments in space and here on Earth. I’m very excited.”

51�Թ�� leading effort with CU Anschutz, Mayo Clinic to use microgravity to grow stem cells. The 51�Թ�� is leading a $3.3 million project to advance stem cell research in low Earth orbit. NASA has awarded the university’s BioServe Space Technologies a three-year grant to study...

Off

Traditional

White

Back home with researchers, more science ahead for ‘mice-tronauts’

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 15:36:56 +0000

Back home with researchers, more science ahead for ‘mice-tronauts’ Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/10/2017 - 09:36

The first 20 star-trekking mice to travel to the International Space Station, riding aboard a spacecraft built by Hawthorne-based Space X, have returned to their home lab at UCLA.

But the mission isn’t over for the mice, plucked last week from their capsule in San Pedro, according to a scientist participating in the project that aims to help humans battle bone loss.

For now, the pioneering rodents are awaiting their rodent counterparts, still orbiting 220 miles above Earth on the space station’s National Lab. And they’re getting reacquainted with life back on Earth, dealing with such challenges as normal gravity.

Off

Traditional

White

SpaceX to launch CU-built heart, bone health experiments to space station

Anonymous — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 19:45:46 +0000

SpaceX to launch CU-built heart, bone health experiments to space station Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/05/2017 - 13:45

A SpaceX rocket was slated to launch two 51�Թ��-built payloads to the International Space Station (ISS) from Florida on Thursday, including one to look at changes in cardiovascular stem cells in microgravity that may someday help combat heart disease on Earth.

The second payload will be used for rodent studies testing a novel treatment for bone loss in space, which has been documented in both astronauts and mice. The two payloads were developed by BioServe Space Technologies, a research center within the Ann and H.J Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering,

Off

Traditional

White

SpaceX launch carrying 51�Թ�� BioServe cargo

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Feb 2017 16:02:43 +0000

SpaceX launch carrying 51�Թ�� BioServe cargo Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 02/16/2017 - 09:02

Several students are playing significant roles in the upcoming launch of a SpaceX rocket carrying two 51�Թ�� payloads – one designed to help researchers better understand and perhaps outsmart dangerous infections like MRSA, another to help increase the proliferation of stem cells in space, a potential boon for biomedical therapy on Earth.

Shelby Bottoms and Ben Lewis, both master’s students in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, are in Florida for the upcoming launch of the SpaceX rocket carrying the 51�Թ��-built payloads. Both are helping to assemble flight hardware designed and built by 51�Թ��’s BioServe Space Technologies for the launch Feb. 18 to the International Space Station (ISS).

Off

Traditional

White

Louis Stodieck

Research in space, helping people on Earth: BioServe marks 100th orbital launch

Single-celled astronauts

A lab 250 miles up

Making humans healthier from space

Off

Developing cancer treatments in space

Off

Back home with researchers, more science ahead for ‘mice-tronauts’

Off

SpaceX to launch CU-built heart, bone health experiments to space station

Off

SpaceX launch carrying 51�Թ��� BioServe cargo

Off

SpaceX launch carrying 51�Թ�� BioServe cargo