Cell-Based Therapy During Exploration Class Missions

The Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (Orion MPCV) is an American spacecraft currently being developed to support human exploration missions beyond Earth orbit, for example, to asteroids and Mars. A mission to Mars will considerably exceed previous space mission durations and will subject crew members to a substantial radiation exposure. Flight time and cosmic radiation together pose considerable risk, even more since conventional medical care is far away. For that reason, long-term exploration missions in space necessitate complete autonomy of the crew regarding medical support and treatment, and strategies for comprehensive treatment of traumata and cancer should be included for emergency scenarios. Cell-based therapies have meanwhile emerged to new versatile and effective applications in cancer therapy and various tissue damages, for example, skin burns and myocardial infarction. However, storage of frozen therapeutical cell products is rather room and energy consuming. Apart from that, power or technical failure would mean the loss of the valuable and possibly life-saving contents. Lyophilization of human cells could represent a milestone in the preservation of cells for space medicine, allowing long-term storage and transportation of cellular products at ambient temperature. It was already carried out successfully for several blood cells and other cell types used in cell-based approaches to cancer and traumata treatment. Thus, the lyophilization of human cells for therapeutical purposes is a promising approach to cell-based therapy during space exploration missions. Some interesting examples of state of the art in cell-based therapies and lyophilization of cells will be discussed in this chapter with regard to application in space medicine.