Advancing the technology readiness level of rapid additive manufacturing microfluidic technology for personalised medicine and organ-on-a-chip applications.

Frontier Space Technologies enable biomedical and pharmaceutical research in space for the benefit of life science applications on Earth.

In this context, our main product is Space Lab, a miniaturized lab is capable of performing a wide variety of biomedical research activities in space. Each Space Lab is fully autonomous, remotely controlled, and approximately the size of a shoe box. It has a range of scientific hardware onboard including a 32 multi-chambered sample disc, a microscope, a microfluidics system and temperature, pressure and atmospheric composition sensors.

Performing this kind of research has numerous benefits thanks to the natural habitat present in space, mainly microgravity and high radiation. This means that scientific research in the fields of personalized medicine, organ-on-a-chip, drug development, organ and tissue 3D printing, stem cell study, and protein crystallization is greatly facilitated when performed in space.

The same technology can be brought down to Earth as a diagnostic tool for self-driven health care and de-centralised health care The outcome of this research will initially benefit Earth and terrestrial applications.

Within the Innovate UK project, Frontier is determined to perform a 6 months research period aimed at advancing the TRL of the hardware needed for personalised medicine and organ-on-a-chip, using a biocompatible 3D printer. In addition to this, this project will also allow Frontier to access new markets related to these field and funding.