Redwire Corporation, a leader in space infrastructure for the next generation space economy, announced that it has been awarded a contract from Aspera Biomedicines, a pharmaceutical company specializing in the development of cancer stem cell targeted therapies, to conduct space-based research and analysis on a new cancer treatment using Redwire’s Pharmaceutical In-space Laboratory (PIL-BOX) technology.
Aspera will use this mission to advance the development of rebecsinib, a small-molecule ADAR1 inhibitor recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to begin first-in-human trials. On Earth, scientists have noted an upregulation – or increased rate of expression – of the ADAR1 protein in cancer stem cells as being linked to the accelerated progression of some types of cancer. Researchers at Aspera have analyzed data from two previous spaceflight experiments that showed that rebecsinib can inhibit expression of ADAR1, halting the progression of cancer stem cell propagation in triple-negative breast cancer organoid models. Results from Aspera’s prior experiments indicate that rebecsinib could behave as a cancer “kill switch.”
