The ASAcampus team takes part in XENOGRISS, one of the experiments by the Italian Space Agency for the ESA Beyond Mission

The Space-X 19 was launched at 12:29 EST on 5^th December last; on-board it carries some scientific experiments that will be undertaken on the International Space Station during the Beyond Mission, led by the Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano from the European Space Agency.

The XENOGRISS experiment is financed and managed by the Italian Space Agency and studies the growth and regeneration of biological tissue, using Xenopus laevis tadpoles as the experimental model. The tadpoles’ diet in space is also being examined.
The PI of the experiment is Angela Maria Rizzo from the Department of Pharmacological and Biomolecular Sciences at the University of Milan; her Co-PI is Monica Monici from ASAcampus, the Joint Laboratory between ASA’s Research Division and the Experimental and Clinical Biomedical Sciences Department of the University of Florence.
 
In addition to its scientific purpose, the experiment also has an important educational purpose: it has been selected within the framework of the YiSS – Youth ISS Science 2019 Competition by the Italian Space Agency, whose objective is to encourage collaboration between Universities and upper secondary schools on topics concerning space research. Taking part in the experiment is a group of students from I.T.I.S. Meucci in Florence, who, led by their teachers Cartocci Stefano, Alessandro Fortuna and Cristina Meringolo, contributed to implementing the trial under the supervision of Kayser Italia, the company responsible for the hardware.
 
The results of this experiment will help to understand the role of gravity in growth and regeneration processes, providing information which could be useful both from the point of view of future interplanetary space missions and as concerns the analysis of biomedical issues on earth.