Right Step OÜ is thrilled to announce its recent participation in the 85th ESA Parabolic Flight Campaign and is proud to be the first Estonian company to have had this esteemed opportunity with support from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Estonian ESA Business Incubator.
Right Step Health was founded to address degenerative bone disorders, such as Osteoperosis and Osteoarthritis, that will affect one in four people globally. Expanding populations and strained Healthcare services mean there is an ever growing need to push the knowledge and develop the tools that will allow healthcare professionals more effectively predict, monitor and treat these disorders. But there is a challenge, those who suffer from these disorders are at high risk of fractures making it unethical to study the very population we need to learn from. In Space, however, astronauts lose bone density at a rate of 2% per month, yet start their missions in peak physical condition.
Founders, Mike Crooks and Marucs Carter commented, “We believe that learning how to prevent that bone loss in space will deepen our understanding of bone physiology and how different exercises, diets and medications can impact bone remodelling without putting patients at risk. The countermeasures and associated tools used to prevent bone loss in astronauts can be adapted and used as interventions or even treatments for patients on earth, minimising or even reversing bone loss.” A belief supported by experts in both the Space and Healthcare sectors.
Right Step Health has developed a novel algorithm based on research into osteoporosis by Professor Jin Luo of the University of West London, that quantifies the load being experienced by the skeletal system using accelerometers. This quantification allows for a better understanding of how skeletal loading differs on earth and in space. It allows different exercises to be profiled, compared and studied. It allows the impact of exercise to be quantified as a variable in studies looking at other human systems, diet or medication based countermeasures. It allows the biomechanics of basic human movement to be broken down to better understand which aspects of these movements drive physiological changes in bone density.
This algorithm sits at the core of one of Right Steps products, Nexus, a platform developed for researchers and research institutions studying bone health. The goal of Nexus is to make the capture of skeletal loading simple and affordable by removing the technological challenges and ensure consistent, comparable data across studies to accelerate the collective knowledge in this area of research.
The Parabolic flight campaign represents the first step in enabling Nexus to be used by the space research community; validating its effectiveness in a Zero G environment and capturing data to profile walking, running and jumping to identify differences in loading patterns with and without gravity.
Leveraging the Estonian eco system’s versatile skills and resources co-founders Mike Crooks and Marcus Carter designed and built a dedicated treadmill for Zero G with support from Golbraik Space OÜ, another Estonian company making strides in Space technology.
In collaboration with TalTech, the Tallinn University of Technology, and Associate Professor of Environmental Sensing Technologies, Jeff Tuhtan’s team a novel high data rate sensor was developed, to monitor vibrations in the skeletal system that sensors on the market today do not have the ability to pick up.
While this is a monumental milestone for Right Step as a company, it is the first step in addressing the bone health endemic the world faces. A challenge that will require support and collaboration to overcome.
Right Step will continue to combat degenerative bone diseases, and this year launched its first healthcare product, Osteosense. Based on the same algorithm as Nexus, Osteosense delivers objective outcomes by quantifying dynamic weight bearing of post-op patients through recovery. It is our hope that Nexus will form a springboard to accelerate future research into the hands of healthcare professionals. As an example, the novel sensors developed with Taltech will provide a rapid, non-invasive means to diagnose and classify osteoarthritis.
If you are involved in research relating to bone health or manage patients’ post-surgery and would like to discuss cooperation please reach out to Right Step.
Contact:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-crooks-5a675020/
+372 53231650
https://www.rightstep-health.com
Media link: Right Step OÜ Parabolic Flight PR Media
