Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) have announced grant awards for two Massachusetts-based life science companies.

The grant winners were announced at the 2015 ISS R&D Conference that has been scheduled to take place in Boston this year.

It has been said the competition, announced last November, allowed Massachusetts life sciences companies to compete for up to $500,000 in grant funding to support experiments on the International Space Station's (ISS) U. S. National Laboratory.

The winning companies include Nanobiosym, Inc. and Zaiput Flow Technologies, both located in Cambridge.

The grant funding will allow the companies to leverage up to $7.4 million per project of support from CASIS to fly their projects to the space station, conduct their projects on station, and bring the experiments back to earth.

Other participants of the competition included Charlie Baker, Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; Mike Suffredini, Head of the International Space Station, NASA; Former NASA Astronaut and Executive Director of CASIS Gregory Johnson; Mike Kennealy, Interim CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center; and NASA Astronaut Cady Coleman, who lives in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts.

Governor Charlie Baker said, "Collaboration is one of our greatest strengths in Massachusetts, and through this first-ever collaboration between CASIS and the MLSC local companies have had the unique opportunity to compete for funds to support innovative life sciences experiments on the International Space Station".

Zaiput Flow Technologies is a start-up company launched to bring innovative tools for continuous flow chemistry to the market.