The stepwise application of biotechnology will be instrumental to addressing four key challenges of Martian settlement.
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Acknowledgements
Viriditas was a workshop organized in October 2018 at Ginkgo Bioworks by S.N.N., M.Y.W. and others to nucleate the development of a biotechnology roadmap for Mars missions. All article authors attended the event, and the conceptual framework that emerged from it was the basis for this article. The authors thank the co-organizers, sponsors, presenters and other attendees for their contribution to these ideas. The authors also thank J. Cumbers, C. Agapakis, C. Da Cunha, A. Robinson-Mosher and R. Howe for editing and guidance. S.N.N. thanks the Harvard Climate Change Solutions Fund for support. C.E.M. thanks WorldQuant, NASA (NNX14AH50G, NNX17AB26G) and TRISH (NNX16AO69A:0107, NNX16AO69A:0061).
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S.N.N., M.Y.W., N.M., V.N. and M.Z. wrote the manuscript, and L.H., C.E.M., M.M., P.A.S., M.S., J.S. and D.B.T provided edits. All authors contributed to its conception.
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M.Y.W., L.H., M.M. and M.S. are employees of Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based company that makes and sells engineered organisms.
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Nangle, S.N., Wolfson, M.Y., Hartsough, L. et al. The case for biotech on Mars. Nat Biotechnol 38, 401–407 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-0485-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-020-0485-4
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