UTHealth Houston partners with Exobiosphere for space-based research
The partnership combines UTHealth Houston's expertise in antibody discovery, therapeutics, artificial intelligence, and biomedical research with Exobiosphere's orbital research capabilities. (Photo by UTHealth Houston)
UTHealth Houston has partnered with Exobiosphere, a space biotechnology company, to advance biomedical research through innovative space-based technologies.
The partnership combines UTHealth Houston's expertise in antibody discovery, therapeutics, artificial intelligence, and biomedical research with Exobiosphere's orbital research capabilities. Together, the organizations will investigate how microgravity may accelerate scientific discovery, provide new biological insights, and support the development of therapies that improve patient care on Earth.
"Houston sits at the intersection of world-class healthcare and human spaceflight," said Bentley J. Bobrow, MD, executive director of the Space Medicine program and a professor of emergency medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston. "By bringing together academic researchers, clinicians, and industry leaders, this partnership strengthens our ability to study how conditions in space can drive biomedical discoveries. The knowledge gained has the potential to improve health and advance medicine for people everywhere."
The partnership lays the foundation for a Texas Medical Center Space Medicine Lab at TMC3. The lab will serve as a hub where UTHealth Houston researchers and Exbiosphere engineers can design and oversee space-based biomedical experiments, analyze data generated in microgravity, and translate discoveries made in orbit into innovations that improve health on Earth. The initiative is expected to strengthen Houston's position at the intersection of medicine and space exploration while creating new opportunities for collaboration across the Texas Medical Center, industry, and government partners.
The initiative is led by Zhiqiang An, PhD, vice president of drug discovery at UTHealth Houston, director of the Texas Therapeutics Institute, professor of molecular medicine, and the Robert A. Welch Distinguished University Chair in Chemistry at McGovern Medical School, and Xiaoqian Jiang, PhD, chair of the Department of Health Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics at UTHealth Houston, where he is the Christopher Sarofim Family Professor in Biomedical Informatics and Bioengineering. Research will focus on space medicine, human spaceflight, antibody therapeutics, AI-enabled biomedical research, and translational science.
A key component of the collaboration is Exobiosphere's Orbital High-Throughput Screening platform, which is designed to support standardized, repeatable biomedical experiments in microgravity. Through the platform, researchers can conduct experiments in orbit alongside matched studies on the ground, creating datasets that can inform future therapeutic research and drug discovery. The mission is to ask whether space itself can become a tool for drug discovery. Exobiosphere is developing technology designed to make that possible.
"UTHealth Houston has developed deep expertise in antibody discovery and translational therapeutics," An said. "Through this collaboration with Exobiosphere, we can investigate how microgravity influences biological processes in ways that are not possible on Earth. These insights may help drive new approaches to therapeutic development and ultimately benefit patients."
The collaboration will also create new opportunities to harness advanced data science and artificial intelligence in support of biomedical discovery.
"The combination of space-based research and advanced data science creates a powerful opportunity for discovery," Jiang said. "By integrating UTHealth Houston’s strengths in artificial intelligence and biomedical informatics with Exobiosphere’s space research capabilities, we can develop new analytical approaches that help uncover insights into human health and disease."
Under the collaboration, UTHealth Houston researchers will study how microgravity affects biological systems and therapeutic development while creating datasets that combine experimental results generated in orbit with corresponding data collected on Earth. Researchers hope these efforts will accelerate discoveries in drug development, precision medicine, and human health.
The partnership also supports UTHealth Houston's growing Space Medicine program and strengthens the university's role at the convergence of healthcare, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. The organizations will pursue funding opportunities through the Texas Space Commission and seek additional collaborations to advance research and innovation.
By combining UTHealth Houston's scientific leadership with Exobiosphere's space-based research platform, the collaboration positions Houston and the Texas Medical Center as leaders in the emerging field of space medicine while creating new opportunities to translate orbital discoveries into improved health outcomes on Earth.
"Microgravity has already demonstrated its value as a research environment, but unlocking its full potential requires data at scale," said Kyle Acierno, CEO at Exobiosphere. "By conducting thousands of standardized experiments alongside matched Earth-based controls, we can generate the robust datasets needed to drive meaningful scientific advances. Partnering with UTHealth Houston, with its proven leadership in antibody discovery, makes this an exceptional opportunity to accelerate innovation."
The memorandum of understanding establishes a framework for future collaboration. Specific research projects, funding commitments, and operational details will be addressed through subsequent agreements.
