Beating 'hearts on a chip' will travel to space on SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship tonight
By Nicoletta Lanese published about 16 hours ago
Tissue-based models of the human heart are being sent to the International Space Station.

SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is scheduled to launch Tuesday (March 14) evening, carrying nearly 6,300 pounds (2,860 kilograms) of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS). But among the spacewalk equipment, vehicle hardware and fresh fruit for the crew, there will be several small devices that contain something a little more unusual: beating human heart tissue.

The tissue will be used in two experiments — Cardinal Heart 2.0 and Engineered Heart Tissues-2 — which will test whether existing drugs can help prevent or reverse spaceflight's negative effects on the heart.

Research indicates that spaceflight can shrink the heart, because in microgravity, the heart muscles don't need to work as hard to pump blood through the upper parts of the body. In addition, the heart may change shape under the influence of microgravity, as blood shifts upward, out of the legs and abdomen and into the head and torso, causing the heart to swell, according to NASA.

[livescience.com]