维克森林再生医学研究所把结直肠癌肿瘤类器官送上国际空间站：TAVIS项目10月13日发射，样本本月晚些回地面对照
维克森林再生医学研究所11月10日在北卡罗来纳州温斯顿塞勒姆发布消息，该所研究人员正在国际空间站上研究微重力如何影响结直肠癌细胞模型对化疗的反应。
这项名为空间肿瘤替身（TAVIS）的项目于10月13日搭乘一项NASA任务，从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角太空军基地发射升空。
研究负责人、该所教授Shay Soker在发布中表示，如果微重力让这些肿瘤变得更易响应化疗，团队可以寻找背后的基因变化，并尝试在地球上诱导出同样的变化，其思路与让肿瘤对免疫系统更可见的免疫疗法相近，用他的话说，肿瘤可以跑，但藏不住。
背景方面，结直肠癌是美国确诊人数最多的癌种之一。化疗仍是治疗支柱，但疗效因人而异。许多肿瘤响应不佳的患者本可从更高剂量中受益，但更高剂量常因副作用而不可行，让肿瘤对化疗更敏感，有望让治疗在患者可耐受的剂量下发挥更好作用。
实验设计方面，该所科学家构建了肿瘤类器官，即用结直肠癌患者的癌细胞在实验室培育出的肿瘤小型复制品，用来测试化疗药物对肿瘤细胞的作用。在TAVIS项目中，类器官充当患者肿瘤的替身，航天员研究人员在空间站研究癌细胞在太空如何改变对化疗的反应，地面另设一组匹配的对照组同步接受处理。
样本本月晚些时候返回地球后，该所研究人员将比较两组样本的反应差异。
后续路径方面，若治疗在微重力下更有效，团队将寻找可能造成差异的基因因素，例如癌细胞代谢的变化，再尝试通过操纵相同基因与细胞通路在地球上复现这些变化。若识别出让肿瘤更易响应化疗的基因变化，下一步是寻找能诱导这些变化的小分子药物，目标是与化疗联用，让治疗在更低、耐受性更好的剂量下更有效。
项目构成方面，TAVIS是该所利用国际空间站作研究平台的多个项目之一。项目伙伴包括科罗拉多大学博尔德分校的BioServe空间技术中心与Axiom Space公司，资助方为管理国际空间站国家实验室的空间科学促进中心，项目经空间站国家实验室与NASA生物与物理科学部的点燃创新合作机制选出。
该所所长、项目共同负责人Anthony Atala在发布中表示，国际空间站提供独特的研究环境，让研究人员能在地球上无法复现的条件下研究生物过程，考察这些肿瘤模型在微重力下的反应，有望带来关于肿瘤生物学与治疗反应的新认识，最终惠及患者。
Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine Studies Chemotherapy Response in Colorectal Tumor Organoids Aboard the Space Station, in a Project Launched October 13 with Samples Returning Later This Month
Researchers from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine are studying how microgravity affects how models of colorectal cancer cells respond to chemotherapy aboard the International Space Station, the institute announced on November 10 in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
The project, Tumor Avatars in Space, known as TAVIS, launched on October 13 aboard a NASA mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Shay Soker, a professor at the institute and principal investigator of the study, said in the release that if microgravity makes these tumors more responsive, the team can look for the genetic changes behind that and try to induce the same changes here on Earth, adding that it is similar in spirit to immunotherapy, which makes tumors more visible to the immune system, and that the tumor can run, but it cannot hide.
On the background, colorectal cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancers in the United States. Chemotherapy remains a mainstay of treatment, but how well it works varies from person to person. Many patients whose tumors respond poorly could benefit from higher doses, but higher doses often are not possible because of side effects. Making tumors more responsive to chemotherapy could allow treatment to work better at doses patients can tolerate.
On the design, scientists at the institute built tumor organoids, small replicas of tumors grown in the laboratory from cancer cells obtained from patients with colorectal cancer, and used the models to test how chemotherapy drugs affect the tumor cells. In TAVIS, the organoids serve as stand ins, or avatars, for patients' tumors, allowing astronaut researchers to study how cancer cells change their response to chemotherapy in space while a matching control group is treated on Earth.
Once the samples return to Earth later this month, researchers at the institute will compare how the two groups responded.
On the next steps, if treatment proves effective in microgravity, the team will look for genetic factors, such as changes in cancer cell metabolism, that may be responsible for the difference, and then try to reproduce those changes on Earth by manipulating the same genes and cellular pathways. If the team identifies genetic changes that make tumors more responsive, the next step is to identify small molecule drugs that can induce those changes, with the goal of combining them with chemotherapy to make treatment more effective at lower, better tolerated doses.
TAVIS is a partnership with BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder and with Axiom Space. The project is funded by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the International Space Station National Laboratory, and was selected through the National Lab's Igniting Innovation collaboration with NASA's Biological and Physical Sciences Division.
Anthony Atala, director of the institute and co principal investigator of the study, said in the release that the International Space Station provides a unique research environment for studying biological processes under conditions that cannot be reproduced on Earth, and that examining how these tumor models respond in microgravity may yield new insights into tumor biology and treatment response that may ultimately benefit patients.
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图片来源：Wikipedia/Wikimedia Commons 词条主图：Forest Research Institute (India)
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