NASA has long touted the merit of protein crystal growth in space on the grounds that researchers can grow bigger -- and purer -- crystals in orbit than on Earth. These crystals help scientists better understand the intricate ways in which human cells form and are attacked by diseases like cancer.
Such research, NASA has said, someday could lead to the development of better medicine and possible cures.
But the protein crystal results on the shuttle have been "inconclusive" and any impact on structural biology "has been extremely limited," the NRC report said.
NASA managers and outside researchers declined to comment on the study until they had a chance to study its details. But one agency manager, who asked not to be identified, praised the NRC study for proposing "some very positive suggestions" and warned against "overreacting to the negatives."
The report, entitled "Future Biotechnology Research on the International Space Station," was requested by NASA's life and microgravity sciences offices partly out of concern from biologists that the space station's biological science program lacked rigor.
"If money is repeatedly siphoned off from the hardware development work,the quality of the equipment on the [space station] will be significantly belowthat of the cutting-edge hardware available on the ground."
The NASA office had asked the NRC to examine specifically the protein crystal growth and cell science efforts to suggest improvements.
The NRC report noted that new high-energy projects like the Department of Energy's Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago have made the quality of protein crystals -- rather than their size -- the critical issue in the field.
NASA researchers argue that such quality can be done in space, and the report itself notes that 36 of the 185 different proteins and other biomolecular structures examined in space were better than the best ones made on Earth.
But whether microgravity made the difference remains unclear.
"The results of the [NASA] program, while intriguing, have had an extremely limited impact on biology," the report said.
The NRC team also criticized NASA's emphasis on scientific devices called bioreactors that can generate cell cultures and are a key part of NASA's cell science program.
Bioreactors, which use centrifugal force to grow cells, have several disadvantages, the report notes. They make it more difficult for small, fragile cells to develop. They also make it difficult for dead cells to be removed. And finally, the vibrations aboard the station could interfere with results.
While the NRC team concluded that the work on cell science at NASA has provided "intriguing and promising" results, "the larger scientific community is generally unaware of both the quality of this recent work and the opportunities for future projects."
The report recommended closer coordination among NASA's life sciences and microgravity sciences divisions, as well as a concerted effort to inform outside scientists of the potential benefits of biological research in space. But the NRC team concluded that the emphasis should be placed on cell science rather than crystallography.
The report also criticized NASA's long practice of robbing from the scientific facility development account to pay for building the rest of the space station.
"If money is repeatedly siphoned off from the hardware development work, the quality of the equipment on the [space station] will be significantly below that of the cutting-edge hardware available on the ground," the panel warns.
NASA intends to launch a full scientific rack containing biological experiments for the space station in 2005.
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