![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4K1K41J_Dr_Sarah_Kessans_with_protein_crystalisation_experiments_that_have_been_to_the_ISS_JPG.jpeg\")
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\nAssociate Professor Sarah Kessans with protein crystallisation experiments sent to the International Space Station in 2024.
\nPhoto: Claire Concannon \/ RNZ\n<\/p>\n
Researchers from the University of Canterbury have created a shoebox-sized laboratory designed to help develop better medicines in space.<\/p>\n
The fully-automated lab means biotechnology experiments can be conducted in microgravity, between Earth’s gravity and space’s zero gravity.<\/p>\n
The lab is currently being prepared for testing aboard NZ-Dutch company Dawn Aerospace’s reusable unmanned spaceplane.<\/p>\n
Leading the work is Associate Professor Sarah Kessans of University of Canterbury’s Faculty of Engineering.<\/p>\n
She told RNZ’s Nine to Noon the microgravity environment is important for growing higher-quality protein crystals.<\/p>\n
“What we’re trying to do is get better pictures of what a protein looks like on an atomic level,” said Kessans. “That enables us to develop drugs against those proteins.”<\/p>\n
“So let’s say if you have a cancer protein; if you know exactly what it looks like you can design a drug to bind to that protein and essentially stop that cancer cell.<\/p>\n
“In a microgravity environment you don’t have heavy things sinking, or light things floating, or critically, having what are called convection currents, so lots of things flying around in sort of random orientations.”<\/p>\n
Kessans said some proteins won’t cystalise on Earth due to that movement, or only in a poor quality.<\/p>\n
She said microgravity allows protein crystals to form more perfect crystal lattices, what she called a “repeating pattern of lots and lots, thousands and thousands, of molecules that basically form a pattern.”<\/p>\n
She likens it to a Rubik’s Cube – the iconic cubic puzzle from the 1980s.<\/p>\n
“In microgravity you get a perfect cube, that perfect lattice.”<\/p>\n
Practical applications<\/p>\n
Kessans said there are two applications for what they are doing in microgravity.<\/p>\n
One is being able to bring that perfect crystal back to Earth and then “shooting X-rays at it” to understand how the electrons scatter, to understand the protein structure.<\/p>\n
The other is actual drug formulation – a prime example being drug company Merck sending the anti-cancer drug Keytruda to the International Space Station in 2007, and crystalising it there so they could make a new formulation.<\/p>\n
“Normally Keytruda has to be administered in a hospital setting, which takes about two to three hours in an IV infusion. The crystalline formulation that they developed in space essentially can be administered in a GP clinic as a subcutaneous shot. So, a much better outcome for the patient and obviously a much better outcome for Merck, and they’ve got a whole new patent family and FDA approval for this new formulation.<\/p>\n
“What we’re developing is essentially a high throughput screening service both for protein crystal screening, so for that drug development and drug discovery, and then also formulation screening as well.”<\/p>\n
Collaborators and future customers<\/p>\n
Kessans said the project is a collaboration of a multidisciplinary team that includes experts from Canterbury University, Auckland University, and academics around NZ.<\/p>\n
She said they received seed funding from Science for Technological Innovation to make a prototype, and $10 million in MBIE funding that enabled them to fly the prototype to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2024.<\/p>\n
The latest phase of the project has received $600,000 through the Kiwi Space Activator programme, announced by the Minister for Space, Chris Penk, in May 2026.<\/p>\n
Kessans said that funding will enable the next phase of testing with Dawn Aerospace, along with Intranel and Asteria Engineering, to test components of the full scale version aboard Dawn’s spaceplane, before it goes to the ISS.<\/p>\n
“We will be the first mission of its kind, conducting multiple spaceplane microgravity flights, and going to space twice in a single day.”<\/p>\n
She said the next step is a new company offering services to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, who can then “go on and make the drugs… from the data we provide them.”<\/p>\n
“This is gonna be a big year,” Kessans said, “so stay tuned for the wider role we will play in the commercial space industry.”<\/p>\n