ABSTRACT
Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has developed a cell biology experiment facility (CBEF) and a clean bench (CB) as a common hardware in which life science experiments in the Japanese Experiment Module (JEM known as "Kibo") of the International Space Station (ISS) can be performed. The CBEF, a CO2 incubator with a turntable that provides variable gravity levels, is the basic hardware required to carry out the biological experiments using microorganisms, cells, tissues, small animals, plants, etc. The CB provides a closed aseptic operation area for life science and biotechnology experiments in Kibo. A phase contrast and fluorescence microscope is installed inside CB. The biological experiment units (BEU) are designed to run individual experiments using the CBEF and the CB. A plant experiment unit (PEU) and two cell experiment units (CEU type1 and type2) for the BEU have been developed.
Subject(s)
Space Flight/instrumentation , Spacecraft/instrumentation , Weightlessness , Animals , Arabidopsis/growth & development , Cell Culture Techniques/instrumentation , Cell Physiological Phenomena , Cells, Cultured , Environment, Controlled , Equipment Design , Japan , Kidney/cytology , Laboratories , Microscopy, Fluorescence , Reproducibility of Results , Research , Sterilization , XenopusABSTRACT
Cell culture flasks applicable for altered gravity conditions, such as centrifugation, clino-rotation or microgravity in space, were manufactured for trial. The flask has flat polystyrene surface for monolayer culture and gas-permeable film window on the opposite face. The space in-between consists the culture chamber to be filled with liquid medium. To reduce the water loss and bubble formation in the culture fluid, another gas permeable window was placed on top to form a space where distilled water may be filled. The double-decker culture flask can be used for both space and ground-based experiments in common.
