Research from Eascra Biotech will be onboard Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), a private crew mission to the International Space Station set to launch Sunday May 21 from Kennedy Space Station. Eascra is investigating space manufacturing of its Janus Base Nanoparticles (JBNp), an entirely new type of therapeutic delivery platform that mimics DNA.

Eascra Biotech co-founders Yupeng Chen and Mari Anne Snow, executive director Gary du Moulin, and Anne Yu, post-doc lab worker, will be at Kennedy Space Center for the launch.

“The science team packed everything and turned it over to NASA for loading this week,” said CEO Snow. “We're set up for a secure communication link with the International Space Station (ISS), and we hope to have space-related science back in our hands by the first week of June.”

Manufacturing in Space May Help Treat Arthritis

With many potential treatment options to pursue, Eascra has opted to focus first on arthritis. On earth, in a lab, Dr. Chen and his team combined JBNps with RNA, stopped cartilage degradation and preserved it. Arthritis is a painful condition affecting one in four Americans and has no known cure. It’s a $65B market growing at 8.7% annually.

“Manufacturing in low gravity will accelerate our market entry by bolstering the structure of the JPNs, making potentially life-saving discoveries possible through stronger products,” says Eascra Biotech CEO, Mari Anne Snow. “The goal is to both build efficient in-space manufacturing processes and investigate the effects of low gravity conditions on our mRNA therapeutic delivery platform.”