Stem cell ther­a­pies for space mis­sions? Pluris­tem joins forces with NASA to com­bat space-re­lat­ed ail­ments

When in space, your in­ner ma­chin­ery can go awry — ask as­tro­naut Scott Kel­ly. The as­sault of pro­tract­ed ra­di­a­tion and mi­cro­grav­i­ty can cul­mi­nate in pro­gres­sive bone and mus­cle loss and vex the im­mune sys­tem. Pla­cen­ta-based stem cells may be the an­swer to lim­it­ing that dam­age, and Is­rael’s Pluris­tem is work­ing with NASA to de­vel­op such an an­ti­dote.

The com­pa­ny, which is al­so work­ing with the NIH and the US De­part­ment of De­fense, last year se­cured the FDA’s emer­gency use au­tho­riza­tion for its stem cell prod­uct for ra­di­a­tion poi­son­ing. It al­so has two late-stage pro­grams test­ing the po­ten­tial of its ex­per­i­men­tal stem cell ther­a­pies for use in crit­i­cal limb is­chemia and mus­cle in­jury fol­low­ing sur­gi­cal re­pair. The com­pa­ny’s off-the-shelf prod­uct is de­rived from pla­cen­ta fol­low­ing full term de­liv­ery, and the cells can be ad­min­is­tered to pa­tients with­out the need for tis­sue match­ing.

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