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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.

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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

Authors
  1. Cheryl A. Nickerson
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  2. Audrie A. Medina-Colorado
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  3. Jennifer Barrila
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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.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cheryl A. Nickerson.

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Competing interests

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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