Exomedicine finally comes

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Here comes exomedicine
Exomedicine is the study and exploration of medical solutions in the zero gravity environment of space to promote benefits to human health on Earth. The purpose is to advance the field, study, and practice of medicine on Earth through research investigations conducted in the microgravity conditions of space which may provide advances in understanding that cannot be achieved on Earth. Although the Soviet Union launched the first space station, Salyut 1 in 1971, the United States designed and launched Skylab with the intent of advancing the field of science both in space and with regards to terrestrial applications. Beginning as a “memorandum of understanding” between NASA and ESA in 1973, the first major microgravity experiments in space were carried out by “Spacelab”. Gravity is a fundamental force on earth that influences all biological systems at a molecular level. When biomedical research is conducted in Space, in so-called microgravity environments, certain earthbound limitations disappear, new and different findings are made, and living organisms behave very differently.
The term Exomedicine was coined by Kris Kimel president of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation and president founder of Kentucky Space LLC and a founder of Space Tango.
In 2006, in a small office in Lexington, KY, several scientists and researchers from Morehead University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville, Murray State University, Western Kentucky University, and a handful of community colleges, began designing and building tiny, cube-shaped orbital satellites to send into space. They were members of the nonprofit Kentucky Space, LLC, and their satellites, which they began launching in 2011, were about the size of a tissue box.
It was the beginning of a venture into a new way to harness the powers of outer space—especially aimed at innovation in medicine.
The experiments began in 2010, after NASA said it would phase out its space shuttle program, which happened the following year. Private companies and groups like Kentucky Space looked into how they could send payloads into space. And with the development of lower-cost technologies, the goal became feasible.
In 2010, Kentucky Space met with Barry Blumberg, who had won the Nobel Prize for discovering the hepatitis B virus, and helped develop a vaccine to fight it.
"I knew that one of two things would happen," said Kris Kimel, president of Kentucky Space and cofounder of Space Tango. "The meeting was going to go really well or really badly," he said. "It ended up going really well, and he became a huge advocate and supporter."
It was then that the group coined the phrase "exomedicine," for the study of how microgravity environments affect biology.
"We think of that term as the research, development, and commercialization of medical solutions in the microgravity environment in space—for applications on Earth," said Kimel.
As Kentucky Space began building technology for the ISS, they began to understand more about a microgravity environment—where people and objects appear weightless, although there is a small amount of gravity still at work—and how it affected what they sent into space.
In 2014, Kimel and Twyman Clements—who started out as an intern at Kentucky Space—founded Space Tango, the for-profit spin-off of Kentucky Space, based on a space-as-a-service model.
Credit:Wikipedia