Tumors in Space

i grew up in

canada a town called sudbury

it’s a rather unusual place sudbury was

formed

by the impact of a meteorite two billion

years ago

and when that meteorite came crashing to

the ground it left

a gaping hole a crater

filled with nickel platinum copper

copper mineral deposits

and sudbury was built

inside that hole and around it

growing up as a kid the um

sulfur content was so thick you could

smell it and taste it and feel it in the

back of your throat

the acid rain was so piercing

it would burn through the paint in

people’s cars

would you be surprised if i told you

that sudbury has an excellent

cancer center

the mining practices devastated the land

the air the water

could this image of our mind tailings

not be from another planet

the vegetation died the rocks were

black and burnt and my hometown became

a desolate moonscape so much so

that the nasa astronauts came to train

in sudbury

before they launched into space for the

apollo missions

so you see i have always been surrounded

by space

right here on earth and i’ve always been

surrounded by cancer

perhaps then it comes as no surprise

that i’m specializing in space medicine

and leading tumors in space which is the

most

advanced cancer research experiment ever

conducted in space

and i have people ask me all the time

but trisha isn’t there a cure

and the dreadful truth is there is no

cure for cancer there is no cure

there is early detection there is

treatment with chemotherapy radiation

therapy hormone therapy there’s surgery

but there’s no cure and we are spending

billions of dollars

doing the same research over and over

again

from biomarkers for early detection to

investigating smaller and smaller

biological mechanisms that may

kill a tumor even though that tumor will

probably come back

we’re treating our cancer patients in

the same toxic methods over and over

again

there has to be another way

in the next two decades cancer cases

will increase

by 70 percent it is time

to do something radically different not

more of the same it is time

to broaden our perspectives

it’s time to use every platform that’s

available to us

to stop this disease in its tracks

it is time for tumors in space

so let’s talk about science

we are sending organoids

into space for a 31 day space mission

and we’re the first team

to do it so what are organoids organoids

are three-dimensional stem cell

organoids

that mimic the structure and function of

the source

tissue or organ from which they’re taken

they’re so

physiologically relevant that their

trademark

name is patient in a lab and sometimes

we call them

well we do call them mini organs

so these three dimensional organoids

consist of adult stem cells

and we take these we care for them we

clone them in our lab and we can do

highly relevant cancer research that are

immediately applicable to a human being

so we

are taking cancer organoids and healthy

organisms five centimeters away from

that tumor

and we’re sending them into space

why space i believe

that zero gravity may have therapeutic

effects

and i’m not the only one previous

investigators

have sent 2d cell lines which are

nowhere near as physiologically relevant

as our 3d organized they’ve sent them

into space for 7

10 14 days and they found a change in

gene

expression linked to tumor suppression

which means

zero gravity may interfere with the

cancer cell’s ability to replicate

itself

so zero gravity may slow or

stop the growth of cancer

what would that mean it would be

completely unsustainable to send every

cancer patient

up into space for therapy but what we

can do

is we can harness that environment right

here on earth

and build anti-gravity chambers

now this may sound like a far-fetched

idea but i ask you to please remember

it wasn’t so long ago we were treating

patients with leeches by sucking out the

bad blood as a cure

and now we know this to be absurd and it

is my hope

that one hundred years from now our

grandchildren our great canned children

will look back on this time and shake

their heads

at the way we treat cancer patients with

chemo and radiation

and wonder how it is we could have been

so archaic

what if we’re wrong

if we’re wrong at least we tried

something new

not more of the same and we will have

inspired ourselves

and others to also try something new

again and again

until we stop this disease

but in order to get to that bright

future without cancer we must be

bold we must be creative

we must not be afraid

to fail

we must remember to dream

it’s not enough anymore to think out of

the box we have to think

out of this world

tumors in space an idea

worth sharing

[Applause]

you