The invention, a surgical fluid management system, flew aboard Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America in New Mexico in May, prior to Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space flight on July 11. The system is designed to make it possible for surgery to be conducted in a weightless environment and would be used on long-term space missions, such as on a lunar station or on deep-space missions such as to Mars.

The astrosurgery team, led by George Pantalos, professor in the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the School of Medicine, and Tommy Roussel, assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, has been working on the system for 10 years, a project that has involved 23 students so far. 

The team previously tested the system on parabolic flights aboard jet aircraft, which provide roughly 20-second periods of weightlessness, but the Virgin Galactic flight allowed the system to be evaluated for the first time under the more strenuous conditions of space and encompassing a few minutes of weightlessness.

The system consists of a dome-like structure that is affixed to a surgical site to control bodily fluids that otherwise would float away in the weightlessness of space. It also includes a multifunction device that can be used for suction, irrigation, lighting, vision and other surgical tasks.

A glovebox designed by the team specifically for in-flight testing was mounted inside the Virgin Galactic spacecraft, VSS Unity, for the flight. In addition to the UofL-designed system, it also included a surgical fluid management system developed by collaborators at Cornell University. The experiments were automated entirely, with no communication between the team and the spacecraft during the flight. Components of the system were activated in response to timing and input from sensors within the glovebox.

“Embedded microcontrollers detected when microgravity – less than 0.05 Gs – had been reached and then initiated the test protocol,” Roussel said. “We only had one chance to get it right.”

The protocol included turning pumps on and off to increase or decrease pressure inside the containment dome to control bleeding, injecting simulated blood into the dome, testing the multifunction device’s suction, irrigation and light capabilities and finally, emptying the containment dome. ()

Every element of the test sequence was a success.

“It did all the functions it was instructed to do during the microgravity period,” Pantalos said. “There was a little bit of variation in how things worked compared to gravity on earth, but they weren’t showstoppers by any means. The whole system worked in the way it was expected to in zero gravity.”

The results set the stage for the next suborbital flight, which the team hopes will include sending a researcher into space along with the system.

“This flight brought work on the surgical fluid management system to the point where it is ready for an investigator to fly on a suborbital space flight such as the Virgin Galactic flight to perform additional tests, hopefully in the near future,” Pantalos said.

The human-tended research experience was evaluated in person during the Virgin Galactic test flight and more tended research missions are due to take place soon.

The development and the test flights for the surgical fluid management system were funded by the , which rapidly demonstrates promising technologies for space exploration, discovery and the expansion of space commerce through suborbital testing with industry flight providers. Each of the flight tests serves as a steppingstone in the development process, placing the technologies in relevant environments to improve their function and test feasibility while reducing the costs and technical risks of future missions.

Earlier in May, the team also conducted experiments aboard a series of three research flights with ZERO–G, a privately owned company that uses a modified Boeing 727 jet to create a weightless environment using parabolic flight patterns. One of those flights involved rehydrating a volume of freeze-dried red blood cells for a project led by UofL biology professor Michael Menze. The other two flights involved tests of a more advanced version of the surgical fluid management system that flew aboard SpaceShipTwo. This was the fifth campaign for the team, each involving at least two flights – each including 30 parabolas and their accompanying weightlessness – with investigators aboard to conduct tests during the flights.

In addition to the surgical fluid management system, the astrosurgery team is developing other technology to allow surgical procedures in space, training protocols that would allow non-surgeons to conduct emergency surgery, using robots to assist in those surgeries and 3D printing of recyclable surgical instruments onboard the craft to save space and materials.

The work with Menze and assistant professor of bioengineering Jonathan Kopechek to develop methods for long-term blood preservation using dehydration previously was .

From the ecology of the rainforest canopy to the promise of astrosurgery to an arts-based approach to improving community health, UofL projects are among the highlights of the first ACCelerate: ACC Smithsonian Creativity and Innovation Festival in the Washington, D.C. museum’s west wing Oct. 13-15. Virginia Tech is presenting the festival with the Smithsonian.            

The festival showcases “creative exploration and research at the nexus of science, engineering, arts and design” among the 15 participating ACC schools, according to the festival . Organizers project as many as 30,000 visitors could attend during the weekend.

“I think it certainly shows that we have work going on here that has huge public impact,” said Paul DeMarco, associate dean of UofL’s School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies and a professor of psychological and brain sciences. DeMarco, who plans to attend, organized UofL’s involvement and oversaw the proposal process for the student-faculty teams involved.

Although the ACC is known widely for athletic achievements, “the intent here is to show these schools have research and work that’s being done by faculty, staff and students,” DeMarco said. “It was important for us to get the students involved.”

The festival will offer 15 dramatic and musical performances, including the 4 p.m. Oct. 14 performance about the intersection of art and public health by . The project leader is graduate student Tasha Golden, a former touring songwriter who directs the Center for Art + Health Innovation within the Commonwealth Institute of Kentucky, an entity of UofL’s School of Public Health and Information Sciences. The multidisciplinary presentation of works that reveal how arts address environmental and social toxins will include Smoketown poet Hannah Drake and Justin Golden.

Biologist Steve Yanoviak from the College of Arts and Sciences and George Pantalos, bioengineering and surgery professor with UofL’s Cardiovascular Innovation Institute, will be featured with their students in interactive exhibits and also as Oct. 14 panelists on the general theme of “Interdisciplinary Thinking and Collaboration.” There are 48 total exhibits.

Pantalos and students Audrey Riggs and Justin Heidel will exhibit two projects: the pediatric cardiovascular simulator designed to train critical care pediatric hospital staff and a joint UofL and Carnegie Mellon project intended to help treat trauma and other disorders surgically in reduced gravity during space missions. Pantalos’ Oct. 14 talk (12:30 p.m. panel on health and body) will focus on the KardioKid.

Yanoviak, whose panel on environment and sustainability begins at 4 p.m., will exhibit with students Max Adams and Evan Gora about their work on the examining forest structure, lightning and insect diversity. The collaboration with other scientists from various disciplines is done primarily at the Barro Colorado Island field station in Panama administered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.  

The museum site for the ACCelerate Festival is on the National Mall on Constitution Avenue between Twelfth and Fourteenth streets NW. Festival hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday-Sunday.