A team of NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) students won the Tests in Orbits competition, which invited university students based in the UAE to develop, design, and conduct a “nano-experiment” pertaining to the field of space.
Organized by the UAE Space Agency and the Higher Colleges of Technology in Dubai, the competition attracted 70 applications. The results have been announced in conjunction with the Global Space Congress, a gathering of global space industry leaders currently taking place in Abu Dhabi.
The team’s winning project “Cytokine-Hematopoietic Stem Cell Interaction in Microgravity Environment” aims to uncover the reasons behind the decrease in our immune response when exposed to microgravity or space-related conditions, and as a result help to improve astronauts’ health in the future. The winning team comprised of six NYUAD students in the Class of 2021; these included Physics and Computer Science major Shantanu Jain; Electrical Engineering major Rumail Memon and Ahmad Nasralla; Mechanical Engineering major Majid Abbasi; Biology major Sion Hau; and Physics major Umang Mishram.
Commenting on the award, Hau said: “This is a very special moment for us as we will be working with NanoRacks, the UAE Space Agency, and Dream Up, to build the Nanolab that will feature our experiment. This will then eventually be launched up to the International Space Station (ISS) by 2020, and the team will be going to the US to witness the whole process, which is certainly a significant milestone for us.”
