Submitted Abstract
The exploration of space is an eternal dream of mankind. Despite ongoing efforts, e.g. by establishing the ISS as a stable outpost, we currently do not know a lot how prolonged stays in space, including effects of microgravity, influence the human brain. Microgravity has clear effects of protein aggregation, particularly diseases that are caused by protein aggregation might be more prevalent after longer stays in space. An example for such a disease is Parkinson’s disease (PD). Furthermore, we are convinced that studying a disease like PD from this perspective, will also have a concrete impact on the development of novel strategies to treat PD. Over the last years, human patient specific brain organoids have been established as an excellent model to investigate human brain physiology and pathology. In the spacePD project we aim at developing and validating a new device that shall allow us to culture and investigate human midbrain organoids in an automated manner under microgravity in space.