Tammy T. Chang, MD, PhD Awarded NASA and National Science Foundation Grants to Study Microgravity in Biological Systems

Surgeon-scientist Tammy T. Chang, MD, PhD, principal investigator in the The Chang Laboratory for Liver Tissue Engineering, has been awarded grants by two prestigious federal funders of research, the NASA Space Biology Program, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS). 

Dr. Chang is a gastrointestinal surgeon who takes care of patients primarily in an acute care setting.  She holds an appointment as an assistant professor in the Division of General Surgery. Dr. Chang's research is focused on microgravity as it impacts biological systems — in a simulated environment on Earth in the NASA research and aboard the International Space Station in the NSF grant. 

In the NASA grant, Dr. Chang, one of six awardees new to the Space Biology Program, will use liver organoids generate in simulated microgravity on Earth to investigate the molecular basis of three-dimensional cellular organization and vasculogenesis enabled by the microgravity environment.

In The NSF/CASIS funded project, she and her research team will use the organoids as building blocks to create larger self-organized structures by leveraging the sustained microgravity onboard the International Space Station, pro-angiogenic biomaterials, and physiologic microfluidic flow.  The goal is to benefit human health on Earth by developing novel human stem cell-derived functional liver tissues that can be implanted as an alternative or adjunct to liver transplantation.

Dr. Chang believes her work could one day alter the treatment of end-stage liver disease and reduce the need for liver transplants with concomitant improvements to the social fabric:

As a surgeon-scientist, my long-term goal is to develop novel tissue-based therapies for the treatment of end-stage liver disease and to translate discoveries in the laboratory into surgical procedures that benefit patients in the operating room. The NASA Space Biology and NSF/CASIS projects are aimed at investigating whether microgravity may be key tool for developing thick vascularized tissues that may be implanted as functional tissue replacement therapy.  If successful, the results of this research will represent a breakthrough in our ability to generate thick vascularized tissues for therapeutic implantation and may spur development of an entirely new space-based biomedical industry. Moreover, having large functional tissue engineered constructs with “off-the-shelf” availability could alleviate the morbidity and mortality associated with organ failure as well as the social injustices linked transplant tourism and organ trafficking.