To create a real cancer, you should grow it. in space – only there, according to some scientists, in conditions microgravity the resulting three-dimensional cell structure will be more or less similar to what appears inside of us when oncological diseases. From birth we are subject to forces gravity, and therefore do not always realize how important they are for life. However, in scientific experiments, it is precisely the gravitational forces that sometimes do not give scientists see how everything really happens. Most obvious example: artificial cell culture grown in a laboratory cookware, covers the entire area of this cookware, forming a two-dimensional monolayer. Due to the forces of gravity, the cell cannot float all the time in nutrient medium, sooner or later it will settle to the bottom. Meanwhile our bodies exist in three dimensions, inside our cells are combined into volumetric structures, and we can assume that they lead they behave differently than on the plane. 
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Pancreatic cancer cells trying to form in volumetric structure. (Photo by Dr. Stanley Flegler.) it’s possible that this is where the cause of endless failures lies, accompanying the search for a cure for cancer. After all, usually cancer cells in laboratories grow two-dimensional colonies and their properties like said above, may differ from these three-dimensional tumors. A good alternative here would be methods that allow reduce the force of gravity. Researchers Jeanne Becker and Glocko Susa from the biotechnological company Nano3D Biosciences from Houston (USA) Nature Reviews Cancer Reviewing Different Solutions this peculiar methodological problem that exists now and which could appear in the near future. Biologists for the first time realized the importance of gravity in the life of cells with the onset of space research. In the 1970s, it was possible to see how in conditions microgravity on a space station red blood surface the cells are covered with tubercles that disappear after returning to The earth. Much later it turned out that microgravity does not change only the shape of the cells, but also the activity of genes: changes affected more than one thousand six hundred genes from the analyzed 10 thousand. Moreover among those who changed their activity, there were those from whom depended on the processes of apoptosis and suppression of cancer transformation. (One cannot fail to mention the work in which gravity was investigated as a force that turned unicellular into multicellular.) Of course, scientists think about how to create conditions for cell culture for volumetric growth. One of the first and easiest solutions was grow cells in constantly rotating vessels, where they are all time swam in the thickness of the nutrient medium. But at the same time the problem of constant fluid flows that affected the ability of cells to contact each other. Other more technologically sophisticated method based on magnetic levitation. FROM using it, as we recently wrote, it was possible to recreate a piece lung, which in properties almost did not differ from natural analogue. Researchers from Nano3D Biosciences taking advantage of this technology, received three-dimensional cultures of various types of cancer: kidneys, liver, breast, ovaries, skin, etc. drugs using this method can be investigated in more plausible conditions if you keep in mind the possibilities molecular cell contacts in the bulk structure. However, when researchers note that the “terrestrial” options for microgravity still not quite perfect. For example, prostate cancer cells glands, if grown in a slowly rotating vessel, form accumulations not exceeding 3-5 mm. Whereas these cells are in orbit form “tumors” the size of a golf ball. In short, the authors of the review conclude that there is nothing more suitable for cancer research than space. True, recently cell-space research is somewhat inhibited due to the fact that in 2011 NASA refused to use the shuttles. Although, as the authors of the article add, NASA shuttles could be replaced by come Russian “Progress”. Finally, we add that, no matter how 3D cell clusters created under conditions did not look natural microgravity, they will still be different from what obtained in the body. And perhaps these differences are quite comparable with the differences of the classic two-dimensional colonies. After all, both the tumor and in general, all tissues in our body are formed under ordinary earthly force gravitations, and three-dimensionality is achieved due to complex and a variety of molecular-cellular tricks. In general, in this a subtle question should be limited to a cautious phrase about the need further research … Prepared from materials Space.Com.
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