Bio-Analyzer: Instant results from space to Earth

Uploaded on April 16, 2019

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Bio-Analyzer: Instant results from space to Earth

2019-04-16 - Dr. Ian D’Souza, research and development scientist at Honeywell Aerospace, explains the Bio-Analyzer, a liquid sample analysis device being tested on board the International Space Station. The Bio-Analyzer will help astronauts accelerate the process of scientific data collection. (Credits: Canadian Space Agency, NASA)

Ian D’Souza: Our technology is called a bio-analyzer.

With this system, you just take a pinprick drop of blood, and that thing will analyze your blood and spit out the results as to what kinds of cells and what kinds of proteins are in your blood.

And typically, what we do now is measure the astronauts before they leave, they go off on their mission, they come back, and then we measure (…) and we see the change, but we don't know details of how that change occurred.

So by being able to test blood more often on board the Space Station, we'll be able to see that gradual change, and we'll hopefully figure out more about what has actually happened and why it happened.

The technology itself is also useful on Earth because it's a very small, portable device, and could be used at various point-of-care locations, where it might be a remote location in the Canadian North; it might be somewhere out in the field.

The fact that we can now disperse this widely, it changes everything.

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