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A vision for spaceflight microbiology to enable human health and habitat sustainability

Nature Microbiology volume 7, pages 471–474 (2022)Cite this article

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Microbiological research has made important discoveries about how life responds to non-terrestrial environments, such as those found aboard the International Space Station. As human space exploration transitions to longer, deep-space missions, microorganisms will continue to play an increasingly critical role in astronaut health, habitat sustainability and mission success.

Microorganisms are critical to maintain the balance between homeostasis and dysfunction for the health of astronauts and their space habitat. During past spaceflight missions, microorganisms have caused life-threatening illness as well as failure of life-support systems and other essential spacecraft operations1. A key objective for future human exploration missions is to understand and control the impact of the spaceflight environment on interactions between microbes, their hosts and their habitat. This knowledge will advance our understanding of microbial responses to benefit astronaut health, the performance of life-support systems, food production, in situ resource utilization and planetary protection. In addition, future space missions would benefit greatly from the design of genetically engineered microorganisms and microbial communities for new applications in biotechnology to sustain human activities. In an era that promotes the integrated study of biological systems, engineering and the physical sciences, meeting this challenge will require the convergence of previously separate intellectual domains and interdisciplinary collaborations to benefit both space exploration missions and the public on Earth. This Comment provides a brief overview of the importance of microbiological research and the challenges that must be addressed for successful space exploration by humans.

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Fig. 1: Reduced gravity environments associated with spaceflight.

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Acknowledgements

C.A.N., J.B. and C.M.O. were funded by NASA grants NNX15AL06G, NNX17AC79G, 80NSSC18K1478 (includes NASA PECASE funding to J.B.) and 80NSSC20K0016. Many of the topics discussed here were the focus of a Nature conference, The Microbiology of Human Spaceflight, held at the NASA Johnson Space Center in June, 2019; we thank the participants of that conference for their ideas and discussions (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/the-microbiology-of-human-spaceflight-conference-proceedings).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biodesign Center for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Cheryl A. Nickerson & Jennifer Barrila

  2. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Cheryl A. Nickerson

  3. KBR, Houston, TX, USA

    Audrie A. Medina-Colorado

  4. Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    George Poste

  5. Biomedical Research and Environmental Sciences Division, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA

    C. Mark Ott

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  1. Cheryl A. Nickerson
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  4. George Poste
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  5. C. Mark Ott
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Contributions

C.A.N. and C.M.O. drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the revisions and final draft of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Cheryl A. Nickerson.

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C.A.N. is the editor-in-chief for npj Microgravity, C.M.O. is deputy editor and J.B. is an editor.

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Nickerson, C.A., Medina-Colorado, A.A., Barrila, J. et al. A vision for spaceflight microbiology to enable human health and habitat sustainability. Nat Microbiol 7, 471–474 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-021-01015-6

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