Forgive Butler Chemistry Professor Dr. Anne Wilson if she wants to brag, but the research she and her students are doing on growing crystals in microgravity is being used by, among others, NASA. And if all continues to go well, the experiments they’re now helping with, which are taking place on the International Space Station, will ultimately go toward making better pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, cosmetics—even ice cream and chocolate.

The story begins in 2021, during the height of the pandemic. Ken Savin, a former Butler adjunct Chemistry Professor, contacted his friend Wilson about analyzing trends in NASA data.

“They really don’t do a good job of evaluating in a meta way the trends that are happening in science being done in space,” he says.

Wilson agreed, and she and some of her students began looking at the data that had been compiled on growing crystals in space. (A crystal is a solid material whose constituents—such as atoms, molecules, or ions—are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions.)

“We were able to show that there was a massive improvement in crystallization in microgravity,” Wilson says. (Microgravity is the minimal gravity that exists in space.)

“NASA loved it,” Savin says.

More than that, Wilson and her students were able to add to science’s collective knowledge base by studying things such as complex inorganic salts and proteins bound to DNA and creating databases so scientists can look at and search the data.

“I was fortunate because people at NASA got very excited, and they were able to do things like write reports and brief the White House using the data that Butler students had collected,” Wilson says.

So far, eight Butler students have worked on this project, and she’s adding more this summer.

“And now, we’ve started to get some partners who are interested in working with me on doing some of these experiments in space,” she says.

One of the Butler partners is Redwire, a Florida based aerospace manufacturer and space infrastructure technology company that designs and builds hardware to help people accomplish science and production goals in space.

Their chief scientist? Ken Savin.

Savin says Redwire is interested in this work because it’s hoping to grow crystals that have commercial significance and that someone—perhaps a pharmaceutical company like Eli Lilly and Co.—would buy them or buy the rights to the intellectual property around that crystal form.

“Some of the work that we’re doing is setting the stage for breakthroughs in other fields where crystals are important,” Savin says, citing food chemistry as one example. “A lot of foods—their texture and their flavor and the way your body interacts with them—depend upon their form. And crystals are a part of that.”

He cites two examples: ice cream and chocolate. If you change their crystal form, it changes the way it feels in your mouth and the way it tastes. Companies spend a lot of time figuring out what type of crystalline structure they build into those products.

Similarly, cosmetic companies use crystals to regulate their color and the way they glisten.

In March, Wilson took four samples to the Redwire labs at the Kennedy Space Center so they could be brought to the International Space Station. In early May, they returned to Earth—and to Butler.

“They survived intact and my students and I are currently analyzing them,” Wilson says. “They look great!”

This summer, Wilson and her students will be working with a list of 110 compounds they will be sending to the International Space Station for experiments. One of those students is Amari Williams, a fourth-year from Merrillville, Indiana, who plans to head to dental school in 2025 to become a pediatric dentist.

For the past two years, Williams has been among the students who have been compiling data from various international flight studies, analyzing the data presented, and observing/comparing the trends seen in space and on Earth.

“By associating data from hundreds of publications with the crystals’ proposed applications, we intend to provide a clearer look at the past, present, and future of this field of research,” she says. “I feel really proud to know that our databases have been really useful for our partners at NASA as well as at Redwire.”

Wilson says she’s especially grateful that this project came along at this time.

“Usually, later-career scientists start wrapping up their careers and finishing up outstanding projects,” she says. “Here I am, starting on a whole series of exciting investigations, and we are just getting started. I can’t wait to see what my students get done this summer, and in the years to come.”