Boning Up on Success with Lowell Misener

Lowell Misener was Project Leader of the OSTEO experiment conducted in space in 1998. This experiment involved veteran astronaut John Glenn; it studied the underlying processes of bone loss and evaluated treatments. Millenium Biologix, the innovative Kingston, Ontario, biomedical firm where Misener works, has since developed an important and revolutionary product: Skelite. He is Director of the Systems Engineering Group and works with technologists and engineers from several disciplines.

"My involvement in OSTEO began back in 1997. Millenium Biologix had developed Osteologic, a product they proposed to CSA to test in space to help better understand the problem of bone loss in space. The group was quite small at that time —just three engineers— and we shared many roles."

"My main responsibilities were electrical and software development for the OSTEO payload, and NASA safety approvals. But I was also responsible for training astronauts because I had experience with the QUELD II metal and glass experiment that flew on Mir, the Russian space station." It is important that designers train astronaut how the equipment and instruments designed for use in space are to be handled. This measure helps ensure that the mission brings back valuable data for the experiment.

Lowell Misener, Astronaut John Glenn, and CSA's Duncan Burnside during OSTEO pre-launch training.  (Photo: NASA)

Lowell Misener at the Johnson Space Center.  (Photo: Lowell Misener)

Valuable data was exactly what they got! Millenium's Osteologic is a bone-cell culture system. After the space experiment, the company used the data to refine their product. They now also have Skelite—a medical breakthrough in bone biomaterial that assists in the natural bone regeneration cycle.  "There's a lot of good science that can be accomplished on the ground. But there are opportunities where space science provides greater clarity than terrestrial science. Space can be a valuable resource—but you need a solid foundation in ground-based research."

Misener has a master's degree in electrical engineering. To students and researchers who want to work in his field, he offers this advice: "Be technically competent, but never lose your creativity and your ability to look beyond your field of expertise."

This approach has earned Misener a central role in exceptional projects. The success of the OSTEO space experiment led to the world's first commercial sale of microgravity hardware. The Canadian Space Agency helped frame the agreement for the sale by Millenium to the European Space Agency.

The most recent follow-on to this success is the eOSTEO mini-lab (enhanced OSTEO), which will be launched in 2006. Misener notes, "To support development, Millenium upgraded their hardware. This is how eOSTEO was born." 

This fully automated hardware will be used to study the development of cells grown in space. One day, it could be used on an unmanned satellite mission. Definitely something to watch for!