Notre Dame professor conducts out of this world Glioblastoma experiment

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- The work towards finding a cure for an incurable diagnosis continues, thanks to Notre Dame.

Professor Meenal Datta works in aerospace and mechanical engineering and has been conducting experiments on brain cancer organoids in space, alongside NASA.

Glioblastoma is currently viewed as an unsolvable problem, but Datta and her team are hoping to flip the script on that.

Back in March of 2024, Meenal Datta and her team conducted an experiment, attempting to grow brain tumor organoids in space. This was done to see how Earth's gravitation pull affects the growth.

"Earth's gravity is pulling these 3D tumors down in these Petri dishes or flasks that we're growing them in, to the bottom of the plate, causing them to disaggregate, to fall apart to sediment etc., and these are gravity induced forces," said Meenal Datta, Notre Dame professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering.

The experiment was a success. Datta and her group were able to successfully develop the brain tumor organoid compared to the same experiment on Earth. Now this week, they'll head back to space, this time, sending up organoids that have been taken from glioblastoma patients.

"If we escape gravity and we leave Earth, for example, on a rocket to go to the International Space Station, that we can overcome these gravity induced effects and allow us to better model this disease and others and that's what we showed in our first flight two years ago on SpaceX 30," said Datta.

It's hard work for sure. But for Datta, the continued pursuit of a cure for glioblastoma is more than enough to keep her and her squad motivated, and hungry to keep working, until this incurable disease becomes curable.

"Showing that indeed, our hypotheses were correct, that we are producing this new model and really pioneering this new field for brain cancer research, seeing the payoff in these students, who are going to be the next generation of cancer researchers and space engineers, that's the number one benefit," said Datta.

Datta and her team were scheduled for another experiment launch Tuesday at the Kennedy Space Center, but due to weather, it has been moved to Wednesday.