WINSTON-SALEM – A team of researchers from Wake Forest University led by Kelsey Willson, a graduate student, has won NASA’s Vascular Tissue Challenge, and will receive $300,000 and the opportunity to test their technology on the International Space Station.
“Not only was this a scientifically difficult challenge,” said Willson, there were technical hurdles due to the onset of the global coronavirus pandemic. She and her team were locked out of their lab for a period of time, due to COVID-19, said Willson.
The Vascular Tissue Challenge was issued in 2016. The winner was announced today on NASA Live.
Willson’s team will continue this work, which has applications far beyond how it might be used in space. She also conducts additional research, including applications for using 3D printing of functional human skin, shared Willson.
WINSTON-SALEM - A team of researchers from Wake Forest University led by Kelsey Willson, a graduate student, has won NASA's Vascular Tissue Challenge, and will
“BACK TO THE FUTURE NASA’S NEW NUCLEAR VISION” was the headline emblazoned on the cover this past month of the leading U.S. aerospace trade publication, Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Teams Engineer Complex Human Tissues, Win Top Prizes in NASA Challenge
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WASHINGTON, June 9, 2021 /PRNewswire/ Two teams of scientists from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, have won first and second place in NASA s Vascular Tissue Challenge. The prize competition aims to accelerate tissue engineering innovations to benefit people on Earth today and space explorers in the future.
Competing as teams Winston and WFIRM, each used a different approach to create lab-grown human liver tissues that were strong enough to survive and function in ways similar to those inside the human body. The teams each used a varied 3D printing technique to construct a cube-shaped tissue about one centimeter thick and capable of functioning for 30 days in the lab.