WASHINGTON In an effort to bolster commercial space technology, NASA announced Thursday its first major deal with a venture group to develop biotechnology products that could lead to new treatment options for patients who face organ transplant surgery.

"NASAs vision is to leave low Earth orbit to the private sector," NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said. "Then we will be able to focus more of our energy on going to Mars and beyond and this historic partnership is the first step."

The past three years, NASA has been working closely with Fisks venture capital group - Fisk Ventures - researching what is technically possible and commercially viable in cultivating cells from mammals using NASAs Bioreactor technology.

In a joint deal with a Baltimore, Maryland-based In Vitro Technologies, Fisk Ventures formed StelSys LLC to research infectious diseases and develop a liver-assist device for patients who need transplant surgery.

The five-year agreement gives StelSys the rights to about 13 patents for NASAs Bioreactor technology, which the agency plans to use at the International Space Station.

StelSys will pay the agency a licensing fee and a royalty of 5 percent of the companys profits, with a cap of $2 million.

NASA plans to use the royalty money for operation expenses incurred by the International Space Station, Goldin said.

The agency hopes to sign up more private companies to use the station in hopes of securing more funding to operate the International Space Station (ISS) so that "we can concentrate our efforts on leaving low Earth orbit," the NASA Administrator said.

The bioreactor is a soup can-size container with a clear shell that allows scientists to check the growth of cells in the cylinder. The center of the container has a filter that passes oxygen and nutrients in and carbon dioxide and wastes out. This helps the fluid rotate without forces that would destroy the cells. The rotating vessel doesnt actually cancel gravity, but it maintains cells in continual free-fall similar to microgravity conditions in space.

In addition, the cells that are created are 3-D, instead of the flat, one-cell thick specimens normally produced by cell cultures.

Such tests are crucial to understanding the chemistry and mechanics of organ tissue, cancer cells, infectious diseases, immune system failures and other public health problems.

As cells multiply, they build a complex matrix of collagens, proteins and fibers which allow them to identify what surrounds them in order to give them information on how to grow and into what shapes.

In long space missions, these large-sample cells grow in bioreactors and can be studied in order to understand the growth of complex tissues, such as human organs. Kidney and heart tissues cultured in the bioreactor can also show the appropriate drug receptor sites that allow testing of drugs to determine their safety.

The commercial deal will focus on:

• Biomolecule Production: Mature liver cells make unique biomolecules for the body. By using the Bioreactor to simulate the natural conditions within the body, NASA could potentially harvest the biomolecules and use them as a jump-start on the road to new drugs or other therapies.
• Natural Vitamin D3 Production: People on kidney dialysis need Vitamin D3, but it is expensive to make and difficult to purify. The Bioreactor will allow StelSys to mimic production of D3 in kidney cells and assess whether it can be produced easily and inexpensively.
• Culturing Infectious Diseases: Some pathogens that cause disease cannot be grown effectively using traditional cell-culturing technology. Use of the Bioreactor could allow for the growth of pathogens under conditions similar to those in the body
• Liver Assist Device: People with severe liver failure cannot survive without a transplant. The BioReactor could lead to the development of a machine to bridge the wait time between diagnosis and transplant.