Studying Cardiac Cells in Space To Guide Cell-Based Therapies for Heart Damage

Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, accounting for one in five deaths. The inability of damaged heart muscle tissue to regenerate makes heart disease difficult to treat, and end-stage heart failure patients have no choice but to join a long list of people waiting for a heart transplant. Researchers from Emory University are working to provide another option for such patients. To do this, the team took their research to a laboratory unlike any on Earth—the International Space Station (ISSInternational Space Station).

Chunhui Xu and her team leveraged the ISS National Laboratory® for cardiac cell research to accelerate the development of cell-based regenerative therapies that could one day reverse heart damage. Results from these studies have led to multiple peer-reviewed publications, including findings recently published in the high-impact journal Biomaterials. Follow along on Xu’s journey to space-based research in a story featured in the latest issue of Upward, official magazine of the ISS National Lab.

It all began with an eye-opening seminar on science in space and a surprising observation about cancer cells during spaceflight. Researchers found that exposure to microgravity increased cancer cell proliferation and survival. Xu hypothesized that heart cells might exhibit similar behavior, which would address two current roadblocks in developing cell-based therapies for heart disease.

After successfully testing the theory in a ground-based study using simulated microgravity, Xu and her team conducted two spaceflight investigations. The first examined how stem cells differentiate into heart muscle cells, while the second looked at the maturation of heart muscle cells into tissue-like structures. Insight gained from the team’s space-based research could significantly advance methods to produce cardiac cells for regenerative therapies, helping to transform the landscape of heart disease treatment.

In the article, Xu says, “The space environment provides an amazing opportunity for us to study cells in new ways. Our research on the ISS could allow us to develop a new strategy to generate cardiac cells more efficiently with improved survival when transplanted into damaged heart tissue, which would greatly benefit patients on Earth.”

Reference: Forghani P, Liu W, Wang Z, et al. Spaceflight alters protein levels and gene expression associated with stress response and metabolic characteristics in human cardiac spheroids. Biomater. 2025;317:123080. doi: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2024.123080

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