Akmaral Suleimenova, a researcher at BioMark, is the leader of a project that aims to facilitate the monitoring of human health in space. With a degree in Chemical Engineering and a PhD in Nanotechnologies and Nanosciences, she met Carolina Marques, from Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa and challenged her to participate in the project.

The students have been selected for an experiment from the European Research Association (ELGRA), which, in collaboration with the Swedish Space Corporation, will launch sounding rockets into space that will stay in microgravity for six minutes. In these rockets, the researchers will send paper glucose biosensors to study how these tests behave in an environment like space with microgravity, vacuum and vibrations.

"The biggest challenge will be, in such a short time, to get a liquid drop to touch the biosensor", says Akmaral Suleimenova. "If this glucose biosensor is viable in space, we will be able to diagnose different diseases in a simple, fast and economical way." They have already established partnerships with foreign universities to collaborate and are preparing to test these biosensors before traveling to space.

It is very difficult to monitor human health in space due to microgravity and exposure to high-energy cosmic rays. As space tourism will be a reality, it will be necessary to invest in practical, light, non-invasive and low-cost equipment. "This technology is very practical and does not need energy. We will only need to pay attention to a color on the paper that will make the diagnosis through a biological sample as saliva or sweat ", explains the researcher.

Now, Akmaral and Carolina are working on an automated system, with a video camera. This way, the experience will not require human intervention.

Akmaral is from Kazakhstan and she is at ISEP through the MIT Portugal Program (MPP). The student is developing her doctoral program at BioMark with orientation from Goreti Sales, Elvira Fortunato and Manuela Frasco.