Florida’s aerospace economic development agency, Space Florida, on Nov. 29 announced the winners of a competition to fly science experiments to the international space station (ISS) in partnership with NanoRacks of Houston.

The competition’s eight winners will each receive research payload transportation to the ISS via an upcoming Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. The launch is targeted for December 2013, Space Florida said in its press release.

The winners, and their experiments, are:

  • Cella Energy USA and Cella Energy Ltd. of Oxford, England — “Evaluation of Cella Energy Hydrogen/Boron-Based Radiation Shielding Materials on the ISS.”
  • CSS-Dynamac, Fairfax, Va., and Ireland’s Limerick Institute of Technology — “Symbiotic Nodulation in a Reduced Gravity Environment.”
  • Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Fla. — “Self-Assembly in Biology and the Origin of Life,” described as “a study into Alzheimer’s.”
  • The German Aerospace Center, Cologne, Germany — “Egypt Against Hepatitis C Virus.”
  • Stanford University, Stanford, Calif., NASA Ames Research Center, Mountain View, Calif., and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, La Jolla, Calif. — “Heart Effect Analysis Research Team conducting Fly Investigations and Experiments in Spaceflight, a medical experiment to understand the effects of space travel on astronaut cardiovascular systems”
  • Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute, Lake Nona, Fla. — “Fluorescent Polarization in Microgravity: Validation of the M5 Microplate Reader Aboard the ISS.”
  • University of California-Davis, Davis, Calif., SciStarter.com, ScienceCheerleader.com — “Collisional Evolution of Particles and Aggregates in Microgravity.”
  • University of Central Florida, Florida — “Collisional Evolution of Particles and Aggregates in Microgravity.”