Cosmic-Ray Radiation Effects on Ibuprofen Tablet Formulation Inside and Outside of the International Space Station

Tran, Quy Don; Spooner, Nigel; Geoghehan, Sean; Thavarajah, Shanjaye Raj; Rahman, Shamaun; Tran, Nam Nghiep; Williams, Philip Michael; Jarquin, Sandra Martinez; Kim, Dong‐Hyun; Davey, Kenneth; Buell, Jeff; Shumbera, Mark; Gittleman, Mark; Clements, Twyman; Stoudemire, Jana; Fisk, Ian; Hessel, Volker

Abstract

In extreme environments people will have different needs for medicine(s), making it crucial to understand how such environments affect drug efficacy. Ibuprofen, commonly used in tablet formulation on Earth, could fail in space despite standard pharmaceutical packaging. We introduce the concept of ‘space medicines’, where solid-dosage forms protect the pharmaceutical from accelerated degradation in spaceflight. We simulate dose(s) in International Space Station (ISS) through radionuclide and photon experiments, and establish the impact of alpha, beta and gamma rays. We demonstrate that tablet formulation protects from impact of alpha and beta rays; however, gamma rays decompose ibuprofen even when ‘masked’. We systematically analyse 19 tablet compositions inside and outside the ISS to determine the effect of compositional changes in the tablet matrix. We confirm that the iron oxide-shielded tablets show minimal degradation (〈10%) inside the ISS, compared to moderate reductions (〉10%) for other formulations, with one exception. The tablets exhibited significantly greater ibuprofen degradation (〉 30-50%) outside ISS, due to harsh conditions. Significantly, we found that flavour have shielding potential by scavenging free radicals. We conclude that ibuprofen efficacy is adversely affected in space, and these effects are expected to worsen on missions to deeper space destinations.

Citation

Tran, Q. D., Spooner, N., Geoghehan, S., Thavarajah, S. R., Rahman, S., Tran, N. N., Williams, P. M., Jarquin, S. M., Kim, D., Davey, K., Buell, J., Shumbera, M., Gittleman, M., Clements, T., Stoudemire, J., Fisk, I., & Hessel, V. (2024). Cosmic-Ray Radiation Effects on Ibuprofen Tablet Formulation Inside and Outside of the International Space Station. Advanced Healthcare Materials, https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202402361

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 24, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Oct 23, 2024
• Publication Date: Oct 23, 2024
• Deposit Date: Oct 25, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 24, 2025
• Journal: Advanced Healthcare Materials
• Print ISSN: 2192-2640
• Electronic ISSN: 2192-2659
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202402361
• Keywords: ISS; ibuprofen; MISSE; space medicine
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/40870187
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adhm.202402361
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Q. D. Tran, N. Spooner, S. Geoghehan, S. R. Thavarajah, S. Rahman, N. N. Tran, P. M. Williams, S. M. Jarquin, D.-H. Kim, K. Davey, J. Buell, M. Shumbera, M. Gittleman, T. Clements, J. Stoudemire, I. Fisk, V. Hessel, Cosmic-Ray Radiation Effects on Ibuprofen Tablet Formulation Inside and Outside of the International Space Station. Adv. Healthcare Mater. 2024, 2402361. https://doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202402361, which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adhm.202402361 The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library