Microgravity research

Crystallization under microgravity

Difficulties with protein crystallisation initiated attempts to conduct it in microgravity. Crystallisation of proteins in space has been a large effort (since 1982). Central to these studies on the microgravity relevant aspects of crystal growth is the recognition of the processes that could plausibly explain a different growth behavior or crystal quality in reduced gravity environments. Three hypotheses have been formulated on the mass transport related (i.e. gravity dependent) processes involved in crystal growth and that can influence the quality of the crystals:

1. the depletion zone model
2. the impurity depletions zone
3. the instability of interfacial processes in certain growth regimes

Present microgravity research is focused on the verification of these hypotheses.

Yeast fysiology under microgravity

The influence of microgravity on cell-surface interaction on solid (biofilm formation and invasive growth) and cell-cell interaction in liquid media (flocculation), of Saccharomyces cerevisiae is studied. Microgravity has an impact on the yeast cell physiology due to a changed gravitational micro-environment and in the case of yeast cell cultivation in liquid media, also the changed shear environment in microgravity can have an effect.

The overall goal of the project is to obtain a detailed insight into the importance of gravity and shear stress on the formation of organised cell structures, such as yeast flocs, biofilms and filaments, which are of considerable interest for both fundamental science and industry as well as the medical field.