NG-18 Research: RedWire BioFabrication Facility – ISS National Lab – Space: is it the final frontier, or could it be the new frontier of regenerative medicine? Bioprinting human tissues for implantation in patients to treat injury or disease would be game-changing.
When Northrop Grumman’s 18th Commercial Resupply Services (NG-18) mission launches to the ISS, it will carry an upgraded version of Redwire Space’s BioFabrication Facility, or BFF, a 3D bioprinter capable of printing human tissue. The project, sponsored by the ISS National Laboratory, will pave the way for in-space bioprinting of tissues—and possibly even organs in the future—that could one day help patients back on Earth.

Photo: NASA astronaut and Expedition 62 Flight Engineer Jessica Meir conducts cardiac research inside the Life Sciences Glovebox, a biology research facility located in Japan’s Kibo laboratory module. The Engineered Heart Tissues investigation is exploring cardiac function in weightlessness that may provide new drug developments for astronauts and Earthlings. Photo date 26 March 2020-  Photo credit: NASA.