Astronaut-Food Approach

Novel uses for the techniques of dehydration pioneered by space research.

The University of Washington reported that its researchers had developed a prototype malaria test printed on a disposable Mylar card:

The malaria cards contain reagents that would normally require refrigeration, but the researchers figured out a way to stabilize them in dry form by mixing them with sugar. Results showed that malaria antibodies dried in sugar matrices retained 80 percent to 96 percent of their activity after 60 days of storage at elevated temperatures.

One of the research team, Professor Paul Yager said, “Normally people work with wet reagents. We’re saying we can dry the reagents down in order to store them without refrigeration. It’s the astronaut-food approach.”

The goal of this research is to develop simple, fast, and durable field tests for a range of diseases, including dengue, influenza, Rickettsial diseases, typhoid, and measles.