Sachi Bio is sending samples to International Space Station (ISS) Labs to study the effect of microgravity on brain aging and disease pathology.
Why even think of Space for Drug Discovery?
Space environment has been hypothesized to accelerate disease pathology and aging. However, reproducible and relevant disease models with high-precision therapeutic strategies (e.g. RNA or antibody therapy) have not been tested rigorously.
Leveraging Sachi Bio's Nanoligomer technology that has demonstrated excellent transport behavior and gene targeting capability, and building on Sachi Bio's body of work on human brain organoids, as well as, animal disease models of neurological diseases, we are embarking on our maiden Space flight to evaluate if the microgravity environment can be used as an approach to accelerate drug discovery.
Sachi Bio is the first pharmaceutical company in the world to test RNA therapeutics, specifically, its proprietary therapeutic called NanoligomersTM, in space.
An "out of this world" challenge.
Space is a tricky environment for most therapeutics, let alone RNA therapy, a field that has been plagued by poor transport and bioavailability, given the bulkiness of the molecules and their inherent chemical properties. Given that microgravity impacts transport and flow properties for molecules and liquids, delivery of therapeutic molecules across cell membrane barrier poses a significant challenge. RNA therapeutics are very likely to face an "uphill" battle in space. Sachi Bio's Nanoligomers are perfect for this challenge. Why?
Nanoligomers have designed to solve the delivery challenge of the RNA therapeutic field. In multiple third-party validated studies, we have shown that brain-penetrant Nanoligomers can even cross the blood brain barrier in animals. In cell cultures, this ease of delivery has been exploited for targeting disease pathways to aid in high-precision and high-throughput drug discovery.
Long-term stability and shelf-life is another challenge for therapeutics as spaceflights can last for months. Nanoligomers can remain stable without need for any special formulation for months, and are easy to handle.
Among many other favorable features, Nanoligomers are ready for the challenge of Space. So lets begin the countdown!
References:
Colleen M Courtney, Sadhana Sharma, Christina Fallgren, Michael M Weil, Anushree Chatterjee, Prashant Nagpal* (2022). Life Sciences in Space Research, 35, 127-39.
Sadhana Sharma, Curtis Borski, Jessica Hanson, Micklaus A. Garcia, Christopher D. Link, Charles Hoeffer, Anushree Chatterjee, and Prashant Nagpal* (2022) ACS Chemical Neuroscience 2022, 13, 23, 3247–3256.