Almost every function of the human body is affected by exposure to microgravity and typically involves complex changes in human tissues and organs. However, in most cases, the adaptions induced by microgravity are only temporary and typically return to normal after returning to Earth.

It uses a validated mouse model to investigate the genetic mechanisms underlying bone mass loss and other microgravity effect on different tissues such as muscles, glands, brain, and provide mouse tissues for many different researchers studying the effects microgravity has on the body at the organ and cellular levels. Pleiotrophin transgenic mice (PTN-Tg) were selected because this transgene (a foreign gene that has been inserted into its genome to exhibit a particular trait) plays an important role in bone metabolism. MDS tests the hypothesis that mice with an overexpression of the PTN gene will be protected from the osteoporosis-like effects due to microgravity.

MDS set the longest permanence in space for rodents (91 days).

Mission: Expedition 19/20, 21/22, 39/40

Launch date: 28/08/2009 00:00:00

‣ News

WEDNESDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2022

SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI WILL BE THE COMMANDER OF THE ISS ‣

AstroSamantha will become the first European astronaut in command of the International Space Station MORE...

THURSDAY 21 JULY 2022

ASTROSAMANTHA, THE FIRST EUROPEAN SPACEWALKER ‣

First extravehicular activity for Samantha Cristoforetti MORE...

TUESDAY 19 JULY 2022

AGILE, published the first article about the “New Year’s Burst” ‣

On Friday 15 July, the first detailed study on this "New Year's Burst" was published in the Astrophysical Journal, using data acquired by the AGILE satellite MORE...

MONDAY 11 JULY 2022

Fermi-LAT collaboration has released the updated list of cosmic gamma-ray sources to date ‣

The third release of the Fermi Point Source Catalog (4FGL-DR3) covers 12 years of data taken by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on board of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope MORE...

WEDNESDAY 18 MAY 2022

SECOND MEETING IN SPACE WITH ASTROSAMANTHA ‣

The Italian experiments of the Minerva mission were presented MORE...