CARTILAGE PROTECTION

The musculoskeletal system is well-known to be negatively affected by spaceflight, with bone and muscle undergoing significant losses in mass and force, and leading to short-term mobility impairments / long-term tissue alterations often retained after return to Earth. As part of the musculoskeletal system, joint cartilage -with its complex architecture- is crucially involved in the motor function and seems to acquire an aging-related phenotype during spaceflight, with significant differences based on gender and age of exposure to spaceflight stressors like microgravity.

The Regenerative Devices Laboratory conducts multidisciplinary research aiming at the development of self-assembled or scaffold-based 3D models of joint cartilage, and at the detection of gender-specific molecular markers, shedding light on (mal)adaptive responses of this connective tissue to spaceflight-relevant environmental conditions like microgravity and vibrations.

This research is conducted in collaboration with the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Center for Materials Interfaces, Smart Bio-Interfaces) and with the National Institute of Optics- National Council of Research.