This free workshop was convened prior to the 35th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Research, which was held from November 20-23rd in Denver, CO.

This workshop aimed to explore various 3D tissues and microphysiological systems (MPS) models as new in vitro approaches for studying the effects of spaceflight on human physiology. These platforms are designed to recapitulate human tissues, organs, and organ systems with much more complexity, fidelity, and accuracy than is typical for in vitro cell culture methods. Methods for self-organizing 3D tissues and their advantages were presented along with MPS that incorporate natural physiological stressors. Development of these new in vitro systems has been advancing for the past decade at an overwhelming rate providing more advanced tissues and miniaturized organ constructs to better evaluate drug toxicities, model disease, and examine mechanisms of cellular and tissue alterations in vitro. These advanced 3D tissues and MPS models have the potential to provide high throughput medical countermeasure screening and high content data for various endpoints in scientific and biomedical studies, with direct translational relevance to humans as many of these models use human derived cell sources. Applications of these models have the potential to support further understanding of human physiology and its response to the spaceflight environment allowing for identification and characterization of underlying biological mechanisms, and the development of risk mitigation for humans in space, as well as supporting disease modeling and treatment on Earth.

Thank you to all the invited speakers, plus those who attended this meeting! Below you will find meeting slides as well as additional information and resources.

If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact Lucie Low, Ph.D. (lucie.low@nih.gov) at NCATS or Lisa Carnell, Ph.D. (lisa.a.scottcarnell@nasa.gov) at NASA.