Develop Human Brain Organoid-on-Chip Testbed and Novel Antioxidant Countermeasure Cocktails for In-Flight Brain Damage

The substantial threat of the outer space environment, namely radiation, and microgravity, to astronauts’ brain health, is consideredas the single biggest obstacle humankind must resolve to travel beyond Earth’s orbit. The currently used models poorly represent thereal human brain, while the combined effect of microgravity and radiation is understudied.Here, I propose a novel microfluidic device to study the combined effects of microgravity and radiation on the higher structure of thehuman brain. This testing platform technology will use the emergent human brain organoids, a model that recapitulates the humanbrain anatomy and structures. This technology will be used to develop biological-based radiation mitigation treatments using novelantioxidants. This will be accomplished in two objectives:Objective 1: Develop a human brain organoid-on-chip, a novel high-throughput platform that monitors the human CNS’s higherstructure development influenced by microgravity and radiation.Objective 2: Screen new neuroprotective compounds and establish their combinatory efficacy in protecting human CNS againstmicrogravity and radiation. This technology will make substantial progress towards Technical Area 6.5.2 Radiation Mitigation andBiological Countermeasures. To our knowledge, there are no other NASA technologies that incorporate human brain organoids. Thiswould produce a high throughput testing platform that will aide in developing countermeasures to protect astronauts’ brain health

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