3-D Clinostat for Microgravity Simulation in Cellular and Molecular Studies

Exposure of animals and humans to space flight conditions has resulted in numerous alterations in their physiological parameters. As a cell is the functional basic unit of living organisms, to better understand the changes at the function level, it is necessary to comprehend the changes at cellular and tissue levels. Although experiments in real microgravity in space are rare and expensive, similar experiments can be conducted on the ground. A clinostat is a device which uses rotation to negate the effects of gravitational pull on the growth and development of living organisms. It has been used to study the effects of microgravity on cell cultures and embryos in animal and plants. There are some types of clinostat: single axis clinostat and two axis clinostat (Random Positioning Machine). A random positioning machine (RPM) rotates biological samples along two independent axes to change their orientation in space in complex ways so as to eliminate the effect of gravity. Both of these devices are used to simulate weightlessness on cell cultures.