Using microgravity for defining novel anti-atherosclerotic therapy

Among the most important insights into coronary and inflammatory disease is that the formation of vessel occluding placques is its essence an inflammatory process, that is counteracted by anti-inflammatory drugs Current therapeutical options of dealing with the increased challenge to public health posed by increased vessel disease are limited and unsatisfactory. Disturbingly, an increasing cohort of patients does not react to the immunosuppressive drugs available. Importantly, however, space travel is associated with well-tolerated immunosuppression and thus identification of the molecular mechanisms underlying this space travel-associated immunosuppression may have significant benefit for directing clinical research on earth. Devising an experimental set up for investigating the molecular details of space flight-induced immunosuppression is, however, fraught with difficulties. Two recent ESA-sponsored space missions (the Delta Taxi flight to ISS and Maser 10 sounding rocket mission) have now shown that these technical hurdles can be successfully tackled.