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Biological research and self-driving labs in deep space supported by artificial intelligence

Nature Machine Intelligence volume 5, pages 208–219 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Space biology research aims to understand fundamental spaceflight effects on organisms, develop foundational knowledge to support deep space exploration and, ultimately, bioengineer spacecraft and habitats to stabilize the ecosystem of plants, crops, microbes, animals and humans for sustained multi-planetary life. To advance these aims, the field leverages experiments, platforms, data and model organisms from both spaceborne and ground-analogue studies. As research is extended beyond low Earth orbit, experiments and platforms must be maximally automated, light, agile and intelligent to accelerate knowledge discovery. Here we present a summary of decadal recommendations from a workshop organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on artificial intelligence, machine learning and modelling applications that offer solutions to these space biology challenges. The integration of artificial intelligence into the field of space biology will deepen the biological understanding of spaceflight effects, facilitate predictive modelling and analytics, support maximally automated and reproducible experiments, and efficiently manage spaceborne data and metadata, ultimately to enable life to thrive in deep space.

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Fig. 1: Multi-hierarchical levels of space biological research and data.
Fig. 2: Self-driving labs are autonomous experimental platforms with AI and ML closed-loop control for knowledge gain and experimental design.
Fig. 3: Deep space biological and biomedical data collection and transfer.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all June 2021 participants and speakers at the ‘NASA Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Modeling for Space Biology’. We thank the NASA Space Biology Program, part of the NASA Biological and Physical Sciences Division within the NASA Science Mission Directorate; as well as the NASA Human Research Program (HRP). We thank the Space Biosciences Division and Space Biology at Ames Research Center (ARC), especially D. Ly, R. Vik and P. Vaishampayan. We thank the support provided by NASA GeneLab, and the NASA Ames Life Sciences Data Archive. Additional thanks to S. Bhattacharya, NASA Space Biology Program Scientist; K. Martin, ARC Lead of Exploration Medical Capability (an Element of HRP); and L. Lewis, ARC NASA HRP Lead. Funding: S.V.C. is funded by NASA Human Research Program grant NNJ16HP24I. S.E.B holds the Heidrich Family and Friends endowed Chair in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). S.E.B. also holds the Distinguished Professorship I in Neurology at UCSF. S.E.B is funded by an National Science Foundation Convergence Accelerator award (2033569) and NIH/NCATS Translator award (1OT2TR003450). G.I.M was supported by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, through NASA NNX16AO69A (Project Number T0412). E.L.A. was supported by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, through NASA NNX16AO69A. C.E.M. thanks NASA grants NNX14AH50G and NNX17AB26G. This work was also part of the DOE Agile BioFoundry, supported by the US Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office, and the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, supported by the Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, through contract DE-AC02- 05CH11231 between Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the US Department of Energy. S.V.K. is funded by the Canadian Space Agency (19HLSRM04) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC, RGPIN-288253). J.H.Y. is funded by NIH grant R00 GM118907 and the Agilent Early Career Professor Award.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Lauren M. Sanders, Ryan T. Scott.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Blue Marble Space Institute of Science, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Lauren M. Sanders & Jonathan Oribello

  2. KBR, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Ryan T. Scott, Daniel C. Berrios, Afshin Beheshti & Jack Miller

  3. Center for Emerging and Re-Emerging Pathogens, Department of Microbiology, Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, Newark, NJ, USA

    Jason H. Yang

  4. AI MATRIX Consortium, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas, San Antonio and UT Health Sciences, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Amina Ann Qutub

  5. Biological Systems and Engineering Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Hector Garcia Martin

  6. DOE Agile BioFoundry, Emeryville, CA, USA

    Hector Garcia Martin

  7. Joint BioEnergy Institute, Emeryville, CA, USA

    Hector Garcia Martin

  8. Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Jaden J. A. Hastings & Christopher E. Mason

  9. Office of the Center Director, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Jon Rask

  10. Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Graham Mackintosh

  11. Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Adrienne L. Hoarfrost

  12. Department of Marine Sciences, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Adrienne L. Hoarfrost

  13. Department of Chemistry, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL, USA

    Stuart Chalk

  14. Center for Individualized Medicine, Department of Surgery, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA

    John Kalantari & Kia Khezeli

  15. Department of Emergency Medicine, Center for Space Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

    Erik L. Antonsen

  16. Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Joel Babdor

  17. Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Joel Babdor

  18. The Gilroy AstroBiology Research Group, The University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Richard Barker

  19. Weill Institute for Neurosciences, Department of Neurology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Sergio E. Baranzini, Charlotte Nelson & Karthik Soman

  20. Data Science Analytics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Lima, Peru

    Guillermo M. Delgado-Aparicio

  21. Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Benjamin S. Glicksberg

  22. Center for Health AI, Department of Biomedical Informatics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

    Casey S. Greene

  23. Center for Health AI, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO, USA

    Melissa Haendel

  24. Department of Neuroscience, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

    Arif A. Hamid

  25. Department of Computer Science, College of Science, San José State University, San Jose, CA, USA

    Philip Heller

  26. Biorelate, Manchester, UK

    Daniel Jamieson

  27. UC Space Health, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Katelyn J. Jarvis & Aenor Sawyer

  28. Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Svetlana V. Komarova

  29. Faculty of Medicine, Dept of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Matthieu Komorowski

  30. SymbioSeq, NASA Johnson Space Center, Ashburn, VA, USA

    Prachi Kothiyal

  31. Center for Data Driven Discovery, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Ashish Mahabal

  32. Waitt Advanced Biophotonics Center, Chan-Zuckerberg Imaging Scientist Fellow, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Uri Manor

  33. Human Research Program Cross Cutting Computational Modeling Project, NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Mona Matar & Jerry G. Myers Jr.

  34. Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    George I. Mias

  35. Department of Urology, Department of Radiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Seung-min Park

  36. Low Exploration Gravity Technology, NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Patricia Parsons-Wingerter

  37. Universities Space Research Association (USRA), Human Research Program Cross-cutting Computational Modeling Project, NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, USA

    R. K. Prabhu

  38. Mortality Research and Consulting, Houston, TX, USA

    Robert J. Reynolds

  39. Logyx, Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Amanda Saravia-Butler

  40. Computer Science, Statistics, and Health Policy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Suchi Saria

  41. ML, AI and Healthcare Lab, Bayesian Health, New York, NY, USA

    Suchi Saria

  42. Biotechnology and Planetary Protection Group, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, USA

    Nitin Kumar Singh & Kasthuri Venkateswaran

  43. Department of Genetics, Stanford School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA

    Michael Snyder

  44. SPHES, Medical Faculty, King’s College London, London, UK

    Frank Soboczenski

  45. Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX, USA

    Corey A. Theriot

  46. Human Health and Performance Directorate, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX, USA

    Corey A. Theriot

  47. Department of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA

    David Van Valen

  48. ISS National Laboratory, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, Melbourne, FL, USA

    Liz Warren

  49. UAB Center for Computational Biology and Data Science, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA

    Liz Worthey

  50. Department of Biomedical Informatics, Harvard Medical School, Harvard Data Science, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Marinka Zitnik

  51. Space Biosciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Sylvain V. Costes

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Contributions

All authors contributed ideas and discussion during the joint workshop writing session or were speakers at the ‘NASA Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Modeling for Space Biology.’ L.M.S., R.T.S. and S.V.C. prepared the manuscript. All authors provided feedback on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sylvain V. Costes.

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Nature Machine Intelligence thanks Ilaria Cinelli, Christopher Bradburne and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Sanders, L.M., Scott, R.T., Yang, J.H. et al. Biological research and self-driving labs in deep space supported by artificial intelligence. Nat Mach Intell 5, 208–219 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42256-023-00618-4

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