Cancer's biggest treatment challenge may be getting solved 250 miles above Earth

For more than two decades, precision oncology has been promoted as the future of cancer treatment, matching therapies to the unique biology of a patient's tumor. Yet despite billions invested and hundreds of targeted therapies developed, studies suggest up to 93% of patients ultimately do not benefit from precision-medicine approaches due to drug resistance, delivery challenges, tumor complexity, and the limited number of actionable targets.

Now, researchers are looking beyond Earth for answers.

Through the ISS National Laboratory^®, scientists are leveraging microgravity to study cancer biology and drug behavior in ways that are difficult, or sometimes impossible, to achieve on Earth. The results are yielding insights that could help make cancer treatment more predictable, more personalized, and less reliant on trial and error.

Among the breakthroughs: 

• A biotech company produced nanoparticles that are 40% more uniform in microgravity, potentially enabling more precise delivery of cancer drugs to tumors.
• Researchers developed tumor organoids that more closely mimic patient cancers, creating a faster and potentially more accurate way to test treatments before they reach patients.
• Scientists uncovered changes in cancer signaling pathways that may lead to therapies capable of targeting cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue.
• Cancer immunotherapy researchers are studying how T cells behave in microgravity to better understand why treatments like CAR-T work dramatically better for some patients than others.
• Space-enabled protein crystallization research contributed to improvements in biologic drug formulations, including helping pave the way for injectable alternatives to lengthy infusion-based treatments.

With the International Space Station approaching retirement and commercial space stations preparing to take its place, these projects represent a pivotal moment in the evolution of biomedical research: the transition of space from a destination for discovery to a platform for solving some of medicine's toughest challenges on Earth.