Big-pharma to pay for ISS?

[docm]

Given SpaceHabs financial problems it's entertaining to hear Tom Pickens III spouting about who should pay for the ISS after US funding evaporates: the pharmaceutical companies. Granted they have an interest, but I don't see them picking up that big a tab on their own.<br /><br />Of course the reason he gives, crystallization of proteins in microgravity, has been shown do-able in Earth gravity using magnets about the size of those in research CT scanners.<br /><br />Wired link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>Texas Investor Eyes Space Station as Orbiting Pharma Lab</b><br /><br />MOFFETT FIELD, California -- A swaggering Texas investor with a famous name wants Big Pharma to pick up the tab for the International Space Station when NASA eases off.<br /><br />Thomas Pickens III thinks the pharmaceutical industry and the space station need each other.<br /><br />Drug discovery is an arduous and extremely expensive project. But in space, molecules do miraculous things. Disease-causing proteins crystallize so well -- growing larger and clearer -- that finding a drug to stop the protein's damaging activities could happen months, if not years, faster.<br /><br />Scientists have known for decades that some science works better in space -- but it hasn't been easy to get experiments up there. Now, with NASA planning to reduce its $2.6 billion annual investment beginning in 2015, the agency is throwing the space station open for private enterprise. And the Texas financial scion and multimillionaire is ready to transform space science with an injection of capitalism.<br /><br />"If people knew what I already know, the International Space Station would be considered one of the most valuable resources our world possesses," Pickens said at the ISS National Laboratory Workshop last week. "There are things you can only do in microgravity that will eventually lead to pro</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[j05h]

great idea, except for the spoilt micro-G environment. What Big Pharma needs from "space" is access to reliable free-flyers and possibly wakeshield manufacturing. ISS pointing and life support create to many vibrations. And as Doc points out, big magnets do a lot of the same work on Earth.<br /><br />Josh <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <div align="center"><em>We need a first generation of pioneers.</em><br /></div> </div>

 

[webtaz99]

Some chemicals need weeks to grow good crystals, and some will not form properly in high b fields. There will almost certainly be some pharma mfg on ISS,<br /><br /><b>if a low-cost means of getting materials to and from it exists.</b> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[PistolPete]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>if a low-cost means of getting materials to and from it exists.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />That always seems to be the catch, doesn't it? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><em>So, again we are defeated. This victory belongs to the farmers, not us.</em></p><p><strong>-Kambei Shimada from the movie Seven Samurai</strong></p> </div>

 

[no_way]

not only low cost, but frequent and responsive as well.<br />the researchers wont get excited as long as they have to plan flight opportunities two years ahead, and if they need to change something on the experiment configuration, wait another two years.<br /><br />If you have like weekly or more frequent assured flight opportunities, then the tables will turn.

 

[hk8900]

undisturbed microgravity<br />minimal cost<br />ability to make changes rapidly<br />ummm......difficult, maybe they can try Bigelow's modules<br />If I remember it correctly, pharma firms are addressed in Bigelow's presentation as one of the potential clients

 

[holmec]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>What Big Pharma needs from "space" is access to reliable free-flyers and possibly wakeshield manufacturing.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br /><br />Yeah those big COWas weigh a ton.....LOL!<br /><br />Pharma....who thouhgt of that one? Crazy lingo. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[theuniverse]

what does COWs mean sorry i am new

 

[holmec]

COWs: four legged animals we get milk from. <br /><br />[spoiler: Its a joke] <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#0000ff"><em>"SCE to AUX" - John Aaron, curiosity pays off</em></font></p> </div>

 

[jimfromnsf]

Look at the dates of your info. It is old. Most of the applications didn't pan out. "Electrophoretic applications" a cheaper and easier way was found on earth. <br /><br />Access isn't the issue. <br /><br />Also the SpaceHab program is no longer what it use to be. Most of the experienced personnel are gone and didn't even work for Spacehab directly in the first place.

 

[spacester]

"Access is 100% the issue"<br /><br />Correct. Private, predictable, flexible access is what is holding back many micro-g developments. Affordable is of course on the list but not primary. Privacy may even trump affordability in some cases.<br /><br />Either that or Robert Bigelow and all the customers he has lined up are all idiots. Hmm . . . what are the odds of that? Oh, and all the folks in other countries who are excited about ISS Science, they are all idiots too I suppose.<br /><br />I gotta laugh at the idea that failure to produce breakthroughs way back under the reign of Psycho Dan proves anything. <br /><br />Since then, Shuttle hasn't been able to provide access, and that is that. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[comga]

"All these nattering nabobs of negativity in the space zone..."<br /><br />Nattering nabobs! Apparently someone else here is from the seventies!

 

[jimfromnsf]

"Regarding SpaceHab: Given your contention, who would you say has "the corporate experience to get experiments to orbit"? It's easy to dismiss SpaceHab out of hand, but if you don't offer any alternatives then you really haven't negated my point, have you? "<br /><br />I negated your point (it wasn't a dismissal) wrt Spacehab. Spacehab never had the experience, it was Boeing, their ex prime contractor.

 

[vulture2]

The central problem with space-based materials processing is that it is sensitive to COST. Instead of looking for the magic product that is worth any price, we should be working to LOWER the cost of getiing into orbit - a lot - if these ideas are ever to be practical. I'm not trying to be a nihilist; I've just seen a lot of hype:<br /><br />-Protein crystallization<br />When I discussed this is a talk to a pharmaceutical company, the reseach director later took me aside and explained that they no longer used X-ray diffraction! Expensive and proprietary but apparently very effective computer simulation methods are used to go from AA or DNA sequence directly to structure. <br /><br />-Electrophoretic applications<br /> />I was working summers at JSC during the CFES project. Everyone got the bright idea that drugs are so valuable they could be made economically in space even if the transport cost was very high. It appeared that the process of electrophoretic separation would be possible in a fluid in space, rather than a gel as it is usually done on earth. McDonnell Douglas built the equipment and Johnson & Johnson provided the product research. They were very secretive about the product but medical resident I knew figured out it was erythropoetin. I mentioned to a friend at JSC that there were ground-based technologies that could work just as well for protein purification, such as column affinity chromatography. He agreed, but everyone wanted it to work. <br /><br />A MacDac rep was discussing the device at a conference I attended. He mentioned they had tested it on earth. After the session i asked him if it came close to the purity achieved in space. Incredibly, he said the purity was higher on earth! Of course the flow rate was lower, but so what? You could obviously run dozens of units on earth cheaper than one in space. <br /><br />So ground-based processing is cheaper for protein purification, even if it is done by electrophoresis, which isn't the most appropriate m