Following a more than three-month delay due to technical
problems, NASA's space shuttle Discovery will make its final
flight Feb. 24 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida carrying two
University of Colorado Boulder-built biomedical payload devices.
One of the experiments is designed to help scientists better
understand changes in the virulence of bacteria in the low
gravity of space as a way to help researchers prevent or control
infectious diseases. The second is a cell cultivation experiment
in a tropical plant known to produce nuts that could be used to
make biofuels, said Louis Stodieck, director of BioServe Space
Technologies in CU-Boulder's aerospace engineering sciences
department. Both experiments will be carried aboard Discovery in
sets of specially designed fluid-processing cylinders built by
BioServe known as GAPs, said Stodieck, The bacteria experiment
will target how microgravity affects the growth of bacteria, in
this case Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, also
known as MRSA. The GAPs