CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Dr. Abba Zubair recently spent his day at an atypical place for a medical doctor: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

“It was quite fun to see the launch of the rocket,” Zubair said of that moment on Tuesday, Jan. 30. “The weather (was) perfect.”

Zubair, a pathologist and medical director of Transfusion Medicine & Stem Cell Therapy and Mayo Clinic in Florida, was there to see his lab’s latest experiment take off. The experiment is among the 8,200 pounds of cargo aboard the Cygnus spacecraft, which was scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station on Thursday, Feb. 1.

“This research that went up is really to look at how absence of gravity … affects bone formation or bone loss, and how the bones’ cells interact with each other,” Zubair said.

Bone loss is a medical problem on Earth and in space, Zubair said. On Earth, people with certain types of cancer, those who are bedridden for a long time and postmenopausal women can lose bone density. But astronauts who spend months stationed at the ISS also lose some bone density, something Zubair said is a “major issue” for future missions to Mars.

To study how bone density is affected by zero gravity, the experiment from Zubair’s lab contains mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and create bone and other tissues. Zubair said they partnered with Bioserve Space Technologies in Colorado to create the hardware needed for this in-space observation.

“You cannot use the regular hardware that we use in our research lab,” Zubair said. “Liquids, they don’t mix well in space; if you try to mix two liquids, they just sit side-by-side. So how you feed the cells, how you introduce reagents or compounds would be different in space.”

The stem cells will be observed for one month aboard the ISS, with crew members interacting with the experiment and gathering some data. A significant part of preparing for this experiment, Zubair said, was creating clear instructions for the astronauts.

“The project is one of the most intensive,” Zubair said. “In some of the phases of the experiment, it will take two astronauts the whole day to implement the task for that day.”

To study how bone density is affected by zero gravity, the experiment from Zubair’s lab contains mesenchymal stem cells, which are found in bone marrow and create bone and other tissues. Zubair said they partnered with Bioserve Space Technologies in Colorado to create the hardware needed for this in-space observation.

“You cannot use the regular hardware that we use in our research lab,” Zubair said. “Liquids, they don’t mix well in space; if you try to mix two liquids, they just sit side-by-side. So how you feed the cells, how you introduce reagents or compounds would be different in space.”

The stem cells will be observed for one month aboard the ISS, with crew members interacting with the experiment and gathering some data. A significant part of preparing for this experiment, Zubair said, was creating clear instructions for the astronauts.

“The project is one of the most intensive,” Zubair said. “In some of the phases of the experiment, it will take two astronauts the whole day to implement the task for that day.”

“Other cells that play a role in bone formation and bone loss … osteoclasts, osteocytes and osteoblasts, (we’ll) study them, see how they interact,” Zubair said.

It’s not the first time Zubair has sent his research to space. He first got the opportunity to send his stem cell research to the ISS in 2017, but his interest in space exploration goes back to his childhood.

“I wanted to be an astronaut, and clearly that is a far-fetched dream from somebody from Nigeria, West Africa, where there’s just a lot of poverty, and obviously they don’t have a space program,” Zubair said. “To have my projects and things that I created in my lab … and then see it taking off to ISS, it gives me goosebumps. And knowing that what we are doing is something that would have a major impact on humanity … I think it’s just so rewarding.”

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