An experiment planned in the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion will test in space the behavior of antibacterial substances and their effect on bacteria under conditions of zero gravity
Two experiments by researchers at the Technion with their partners in Italy will soon be launched into space, to test the effect of microgravity (zero gravity) on various phenomena.
The experiments, which examine various effects of microgravity, will be launched from French Guinea on a European Space Agency launcher. This is within the framework of cooperation between the Israeli Space Agency in the Ministry of Science and Technology and the Italian Space Agency, which includes four experiments that will be carried out by the "Space Pharma" company. One Israeli and one Italian researcher will participate in each experiment.
The first experiment, which will examine the behavior of antimicrobial molecules and their effect on bacteria, was designed by Prof. Beaz Pokroi from the Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering at the Technion and his partner Prof. Giuseppe Fellini from the University of Bologna; The second experiment, which will test the binding speed of chemical substances to blood proteins, was designed by researchers from the Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and Tre University in Rome.
Prof. Pokroy and Prof. Fellini's experiment is called SpaceLysis, and within it the effect of microgravity on the kinetics of antimicrobial substances and their action on bacteria will be tested. According to Prof. Pokroy, on Earth the interaction between bacteria and these substances depends on diffusion and convection, while in space there will be zero convection and therefore the interaction is expected to change significantly. The researchers, who have already conducted the experiment on Earth, wish to learn through the experiment in space the effect of microgravity on the aforementioned interactions.
