Bugs, 'pineapple cans' and a commercially savvy ISS
Bugs are battling worms in space right now, and the outcome could have profound implications for our health here on Earth.
This isn't the plot of some sci-fi movie but the description of a fascinating scientific experiment taken up to the International Space Station (ISS) by the shuttle this past fortnight.
have been running an investigation which could one day lead to a vaccine for MRSA, or some other novel approach to combating a bug that has come to blight modern hospitals worldwide.
results in hundreds of thousands of infections every year, delaying the recovery of some patients and hastening the deaths of others.
Its refusal to budge in the face of some of our best antibiotics has sent scientists scurrying for new solutions. Space may have the answer.
You needn't worry that the astronauts on the station will have been infected. The experiment they took up was in a tightly sealed container about the size of a pineapple can.
Inside this vessel are a series of eight tubes divided into compartments. In some compartments are armies of - the so loved by laboratory scientists because their biology on a very simple level resembles our own.
In others are different types of MRSA bacteria. These have been modified at a genetic level to try to reduce their virulence - to remove their ability to infect a host.
The astronaut simply takes the can in hand and cranks a handle, at which point the tubes' contents are mixed, and the C. elegans and the MRSA go at each other hell-for-leather.
The worms eat the bacteria and the bacteria fight back.
Now, something really odd happens in the weightless conditions experienced in orbit. Bacteria can multiply rapidly and their ability to cause disease can become greatly amplified. The bad become worse.
. What it means, though, is that few worms will be expected to survive unless their particular MRSA foe has been severely weakened by the modification process.
In other words, find the worms that are flourishing and you may have identified a "flavour" of bacterium which looks just like a virulent form but doesn't actually cause disease.
And that's the basis for a vaccine - something which will provoke a sustained immune response without inducing an illness.
The pineapple can - or assay, to give it its correct term - has already delivered some smart results for salmonella.
Astronaut studies have identified two genes in the infamous food-borne bacterium which, if you delete them, will cause the bug's virulence to go away.
An application will soon be filed with the to start initial clinical trials on a salmonella vaccine.
All this work is being led by a company operating out of Austin, Texas, called .
The US space agency (Nasa) has guaranteed the firm experiment opportunities on all the remaining shuttle flights to the ISS.
It's a facility that's priceless, Dr Jeanne Becker, the company's chief science officer, told me:
"In order for us to do any of this has required iterative opportunities for science - to be able to ask a question, do the flight, get an answer, and then go forward with the next series of investigations.
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"This is all about using space for product development; this is what ISS was built for. We really feel that ISS is a platform for new discovery."
Astrogenetix is something of a rarity - a commercial venture that has sought to exploit the space station to advance new applications.
That so few others have come forward in the same way has something to do with the difficulties the ISS has gone through in its construction phase. Utilisation has taken a backseat.
But it probably also now has something to do with the uncertainty over the station's continued existence.
It's a truism in business that companies need confidence to invest; and currently there are considerable risks in getting involved in a project that may not be flying beyond the first few months of 2016 if no mission extension is granted.
The to look at the future of Nasa's human spaceflight programme will have far-reaching consequences beyond just identifying a spaceship to replace the shuttle.
It will also decide whether some of the original goals set out for the space station are ever to be fully realised.
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