Aug. 15, 2025
Space Medicine
Pitt researchers are turning to outer space to make down to earth discoveries about aging-related diseases and other conditions.
TOPICS: Aging & Lifespan | Centers and Institutes | School of Medicine
Look to the Stars
By Strategic Communications
The University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences has entered the latest space race in a big way. Researchers here are sending samples into orbit, analyzing multiomics data from astronauts, simulating cosmic experiences on the ground and collaborating across disciplines to find out how human bodies can best handle spaceflight.
They hope that their findings will deepen understanding of what patients experience on Earth—and present new options to help them. Spaceflight offers accelerated models of a wide range of diseases and conditions, especially aging-related diseases and even aging itself.
“Space is not only for the pure exploration of it, which I think is key, but it’s also going to help humanity with all the technology and biomedicine we’ll produce from it,” says Afshin Beheshti, professor of surgery, School of Medicine. He joined Pitt to become the director of the Center for Space Biomedicine, which launched in 2024 and is now part of Pitt's Trivedi Institute for Space and Global Biomedicine, one of the first dedicated institutes focused on applying insights from spaceflight to improve human health on Earth.
In 2022, Giuseppe Intini, associate professor of periodontics and preventive dentistry, School of Dental Medicine, sent 40 mice on the SpaceX CRS-26 RR25 mission to study bone loss, a major concern as NASA hopes to have people live and work on the moon and to send people to Mars.
Floating in microgravity means that astronauts’ bones don’t experience the same impact that they do on Earth, which likely is part of what keeps them from stimulating new growth. On top of its promise for astronauts, the work offers an opportunity to better understand bone loss from osteoporosis and aging for patients here on Earth.
“Space is not only for the pure exploration of it, which I think is key, but it’s also going to help humanity with all the technology and biomedicine we’ll produce from it.”
Afshin Beheshti, professor of surgery
To examine how bone stem cells seem to become blocked in space flight, Intini’s team performed RNA sequencing on cells from bones including the skull, femur and teeth after the mice splashed back down to Earth. Intini also studied the feasibility of a “bone super glue” called Tetranite that could offer a less invasive option to repair fractures and encourage bone regeneration.
Pitt is bringing in new experts, too. Former NASA astronaut and microbiologist Kate Rubins recently joined the School of Medicine as a professor of computational and systems biology. She has completed two long-duration missions aboard the International Space Station, contributing to numerous scientific experiments, including the first long-duration cell culture in space and 3D tissue studies examining cellular adaptation to microgravity.