By Douglas Farmer

Microfluidics and fluorescence microscopy have long been integral to diagnostics and the life sciences. Recently, a group of researchers advanced this union into space — at least in principle. This collaboration, involving Newcastle University in England, Stanford University in the U.S., and the European Space Agency (ESA), aimed to investigate how microgravity affects cellular processes, including those relevant to astronaut survival. To simulate microgravity, the researchers used a modified Airbus A310, called ZERO-G, leased by ESA from Novespace, which conducts parabolic (weightless) flights.

Adam Wollman, research group leader and Newcastle University Academic Track (NUAcT) fellow in the Faculty of Medical Science at Newcastle University, said the team decided to focus on fluorescent glucose uptake in yeast in a microgravity environment. Yeast was studied because it is a key ingredient in many foods and supplies and an essential resource for survival during long-term spaceflight or future settlement on an extraterrestrial world. For observational purposes, the team assembled an imaging system called FlightScope, which included a white-light LED array for bright-field microscopy, a high-power single-wavelength LED for fluorescence imaging, a CMOS camera, an objective lens, and a tube lens. FlightScope was used to examine a 3D-printed chip with flow rates controlled by five pump-based syringes (www.doi.org/10.1038/s41526-025-00470-3).

Wollman noted that the cellular functions of yeast serve as a useful model for how human systems absorb nutrients. Thanks to vibration dampeners, the potentially damaging effects of in-flight vibrations on the integrity of the experiment were minimized. The system clearly revealed cellular changes associated with glucose uptake via bright-field and fluorescence imaging, with gravity-related movements accounted for in the analysis. In the future, the team plans to study algae and their movements in a microgravity environment. Algae play an important role in Earth’s environment and could provide oxygen during extended spaceflight.

Fluorescence microscopy and microfluidics have also been effectively applied back on the ground, as highlighted in this edition’s cover story by scientists Enrico Lanza, Valeria Lucente, and Ilaria F. Cavallo. The researchers describe an imaging system combining fluorescence microscopy and microfluidics to form cellular clusters within Neurosetta microfluidic plates, as well as the use of genetically encoded calcium indicators in Caenorhabditis elegans to mimic neuronal activity. They found that integrating syringe pumps to control flow in microfluidic chips, along with using CMOS sensors in wide-field microscopy, helped to reveal multiple biological processes at once. Read more here.

These experiments and other ongoing studies have shown potential not only to isolate specific processes in a controlled environment but also to observe a range of intricate cellular processes in the context of cancer research and therapy. This research suggests that the sky may not be the limit.

Enjoy the issue!

Douglas J. Farmer