Professor Zhou's Lung Cell Research Launches to Space Station on Tianzhou-8

At 23:13 Beijing time on November 15, 2024, the “Long March-7” Y9 carrier rocket, carrying the “Tianzhou-8” spacecraft, was launched from the Wenchang Space Launch Site.

The team led by Professor Zhou Guangming from the School of Radiation Medicine and Protection at our university is responsible for the project “Research on Space Radiation-Induced Lung Cell Transformation Effects, Mechanisms, and Biomarkers” during the China Space Station construction phase. Lung cell samples were sent aboard the “Tianzhou-8” to the China Space Station.

With the support of the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, the team has overcome the technical challenge of long-term in vitro 2D culture of human normal cells. They successfully sent human lung epithelial cells to the China Space Station for automatic in-orbit cultivation for 30 days. The samples returned will be used to analyze key biomarkers in the process of cell carcinogenesis, explore the effects and mechanisms of space radiation-induced cancer, and provide a theoretical basis for establishing space radiation health risk assessment and protection systems.