Auxilium bioprints kidney and liver tissue aboard the ISS on SpaceX CRS-34, alongside 28 nerve-repair implants

Auxilium Biotechnologies used its AMP-1 orbital bioprinter aboard the International Space Station to produce kidney tissue, liver tissue, cartilage, and 28 nerve-repair implants during NASA's SpaceX CRS-34 mission. The samples splashed down off the California coast on June 17 after returning aboard a Dragon capsule. Cells and tissue models came from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, whose director Anthony Atala called the liver and kidney results a major advance for regenerative medicine. Auxilium CEO Jacob Koffler said the flight builds on an earlier demonstration of larger-scale medical device manufacturing in orbit, showing one platform can produce both living tissue and implantable devices on the same mission.

The target application is organoids, lab-grown tissue models used to test drugs and study disease as an alternative to animal testing. Today those models are made on Earth and shipped to orbit for study; printing them in space instead removes dependence on launch schedules and terrestrial supply chains, and microgravity itself may support structures that are difficult to hold together under normal gravity. The timing matters because the ISS is approaching decommissioning, and Auxilium is already positioning for the handoff by working with Vast and Starlab, two companies building commercial successor stations, with the company also not ruling out lunar or long-duration missions further out.

The near-term test is cadence, not capability: one successful flight demonstrates feasibility, but building a reliable organoid supply for pharmaceutical and biotech buyers requires repeat missions on stations that do not yet exist in operational form. Regulatory and quality-control pathways for tissue manufactured off-planet remain undefined, and until commercial stations reach routine operations, this stays a research milestone rather than a revenue-generating service line.