Astronauts may grow Medicines: UC San Diego tests space pharma
Researchers at UC San Diego are testing a method to grow therapeutic plant viruses in microgravity to provide medicine for long-duration space missions. This could solve the issue of pharmaceutical expiration during extended travel to Mars.
Why it matters
Addresses a critical logistical hurdle for future human exploration of Mars by ensuring medical self-sufficiency.
Astronauts heading to Mars will be gone for roughly 400 days, and everything they need has to travel with them or arrive ahead of them. Food is the problem everyone talks about. The bigger one might be the medicine cabinet. More than half the pharmaceuticals stocked on the International Space Station expire within three years—well short of the window a Mars crew would need them for. Expired drugs aren't just weaker. They can turn toxic.A new study out of the University of California San Diego proposes a workaround that sounds almost absurdly simple: grow the medicine on the way.
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