​How Space Crystals Are Helping Researchers Treat a Genetic Disorder

The positive power of "healing crystals" has been a staple of New Age pseudoscience for decades. But as it turns out, crystals might actually have some real world medical currency, according to a new NASA video entitled "Benefits for Humanity: Hope Crystallizes."

The short film demonstrates how crystallizing the proteins associated with a genetic disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)—especially in a microgravity environment—is helping researchers better understand the disease, and hopefully extend the life expectancy of patients.

"Benefits for Humanity: Hope Crystallizes." Credit:

NASA/YouTube

"DMD is the most common muscle disease affecting young boys," said Timothy Lotze, a neurologist at the Texas Children's Hospital, in the film. "It affects about one in 3,600. It's incurable condition and it results in, really, muscle weakness that worsens over a boy's lifetime."

Boys born with DMD have a life expectancy of about 20 to 25 years, and they typically lose their ability to walk before they even reach their teens. But the efforts of an international team headed up by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) show promise in treating the disease.

For the last 12 years, JAXA scientists have been experimenting with space crystals aboard the ISS, with a particular focus on producing high quality protein crystals.

"In order to combat diseases like [DMD], we have to study the structure of proteins that are associated with that particular disease," explained biochemist and former astronaut Larry DeLucas in the film. "In order to do that, we first must crystallize that protein."

This process involves copying one particular protein millions of times to produce a three-dimensional crystal. "But here's the problem," explained DeLucas, "when we try to grow a crystal on Earth, gravity can affect the way the molecules become aligned on the crystal's surface, and that affects the overall quality of the crystal."

Microgravity, however, is the ideal environment for growing crystals with a high degree of precision. The crystallized proteins aboard the ISS grow at a much slower rate than their Earthbound counterparts, but they end up as nearly perfectly aligned and oriented reproductions of specific proteins.

Among the many proteins that have been studied in space are the structures associated with DMD, and as a result, JAXA has mapped out the intricate details of the condition's cellular topography. With this data, scientists are already in the process of designing a drug to bind with DMD-relevant proteins, which would in turn slow down its symptoms—adding years of life and mobility to boys with this condition.

"Studying this protein led to a huge discovery," said molecular biologist Yoshihiro Urade, in a NASA statement. "What we're talking about is potentially doubling the lifespan of many DMD patients, and it's all because of research opportunities afforded to us by the International Space Station."