this is cancer in space we said well what happens if you send full-blown cancer into space will cancer go crazy which it did the cancer hitch a ride on a mission to the International Space Station and it was sent there by scientists because cells and cancer react very differently when they get to space if we send these manyi tumors into space they triple in size and just 10 days and it would take 10 years to see that on the ground so cancer becomes unhinged in space it's believed that the weaker gravity acting on cells up in space known as microgravity is the main culprit cancer is really trying to form its own organ or tissue and it is invading and metastasizing spreading to other areas in other words unrestrained by normal tissue boundaries and that's what we see in microgravity but while cancer develops in warp speed in space it also means scientists can experiment with possible treatments equally rapidly and they've honed their focus on a spefic specific Gene called adar1 adar1 has been on our radar for about a decade as a cause of Cancer's capacity to be able to come back by cloning itself and evading our immune system this Gene gets switched on when cells are under stress and has been linked to about 20 different types of cancer especially when cancers become resistant to therapy so we were testing if it gets turned on can we turn off that cancer cloning Gene with a drug if we genetically knocked down Adar does that block these little little mini tumors from cloning themselves which it did and we think we found a cancer kill switch so if we can block Adar we can prevent cancer from cloning itself the scientists believe they may well have found a way to Target this adar1 Gene through a drug called reex anib we were able to shut down that Adar Gene and prevent its capacity to get these little mini tumors to clone themselves or in other words grow in the bi reactor so that's what we saw in this Mission but it's not just the cancer cells being studied it's also the astronauts themselves so this is a uniquely talented but also committed group of scientists that are willing to not just help you do the experiment they're actually part of the experiment they're giving their blood so we can get their stem cells to see how they responded to that space FL but before we get too carried away this drug is still far from being available for treatment on humans here on Earth We're trying to get into clinical trials before the end of this year because there are patients that I'll see today in clinic that already need this we need that kill switch for cancer we need to stop it in its tracks before it blasts off and so rather than being frustrated on the ground we're getting really exciting new solutions that we're discovering from space e