In the Spotlight:
 2023 NASA Science calendar is now available! Each month features a stunningly beautiful photo of NASA science and a biography of some notable NASA pioneers. Comes in print resolution quality or optimized version for faster download.
Tomato Experiment on ISS (Veg-05) Makes Local News
Kennedy Space Center Scientist Dr. Gioia Massa discusses the Red Roma tomato experiment that launched to ISS on SpaceX-26 with the local news station Spectrum News.
NASA Technology Transfer office sponsors Webinar on Device for Isolating Biological Samples in Space
Kennedy Space Center Space Biology Project Scientist Dr. Ye Zhang and Johnson Space Center Senior Scientist Dr. Honglu Wu presented a webinar on the development of a patented device for isolating biological samples in space. The technology is a self-contained device that can potentially be used for isolating deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), ribonucleic acid (RNA), proteins, and cells without using pipettes or centrifuges in space. Read more about this technology and view the recorded webinar here.
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 Spaceflight News
Orion Splashdown Successfully Concludes the Artemis-I Mission
NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Baja California, at 12:40pm EST after a record-breaking mission, traveling more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon and returning safely to Earth, completing the Artemis I flight test.
Splashdown is the final milestone of the Artemis I mission that began with a successful liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket Nov. 16, from Launch Pad 39B.
“The splashdown of the Orion spacecraft – which occurred 50 years to the day of the Apollo 17 Moon landing – is the crowning achievement of Artemis I. From the launch of the world’s most powerful rocket to the exceptional journey around the Moon and back to Earth, this flight test is a major step forward in the Artemis Generation of lunar exploration,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “It wouldn’t be possible without the incredible NASA team. For years, thousands of individuals have poured themselves into this mission, which is inspiring the world to work together to reach untouched cosmic shores. Today is a huge win for NASA, the United States, our international partners, and all of humanity.”
Recovery teams are now working to secure Orion for the journey home. NASA leads the interagency landing and recovery team on the USS Portland, which consists of personnel and assets from the U.S. Department of Defense, including Navy amphibious specialists, Space Force weather specialists, and Air Force specialists, as well as engineers and technicians from NASA Kennedy, the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Lockheed Martin Space Operations.
In the coming days, Orion will return to shore where technicians will offload the spacecraft and transfer it by truck back to Kennedy. Once at Kennedy, teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including Commander Moonikin Campos, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Next, the capsule and its heat shield will undergo testing and analysis over the course of several months.
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 New Discoveries
Multidrug-resistant Bacteria Shows Adaptation to the International Space Station
 In a newly published paper, Dr. Kasthuri Venkateswaran of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory reports how an International Space Station-associated bacteria - Acenitobacter pittii has formed its own genetically and functionally discrete clade distinct from most of those found on Earth.
- This isolate was tested for antimicrobial susceptibility and compared with two related clinical isolates, which demonstrated that ISS strains acquired more resistance, specifically with regard to expanded-spectrum cephalosporins.
This ran counter to the prediction of increased resistance based on genomic analysis of resistance genes.
- By investigating 402 longitudinal environmental and host-associated ISS metagenomes, this study found that viable Acenitobacter pittii is increasing in relative abundance and therefore potentially exhibiting succession. It was identified in >2X more metagenomic samples in back-to-back missions.
- ISS strains additionally contain functions that enable them to survive in harsh environments, including the transcriptional regulator LexA.
Conducting a genome-wide association analysis, researchers identified a high level of mutational burden in methionine sulfoxide reductase genes relative to the most closely related Earth strains.
Monitoring the adaptation of microorganisms to the extreme environment of the International Space Station (ISS) is crucial to understanding microbial evolution and infection prevention. Acinetobacter pittii is an opportunistic nosocomial pathogen, primarily impacting immunocompromised patients, that was recently isolated from two missions aboard the ISS.
Image: Antimicrobial susceptibility testing data of the various A. pittii strains. The results of antimicrobial testing of the ISS isolates vs. comparable clinical isolates across two flight experiments; Microbial Tracking-1 and -2. Those labeled in red were determined to be resistant strains.
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Find us at Facebook.com/spacebiology.
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Events & Opportunities
NASA Space Biology Research Funding Opportunity
 NASA Space Biology is soliciting proposals for ground-based plant or animal studies (and/or their associated microbes) that will characterize the responses of these organisms to conditions that recapitulate the stressors encountered in space exploration, specifically, exposure to lunar regolith (simulant). Section 2.1 of this program element provides additional details about the plant studies solicited by this opportunity, as well as the specific project types that can be proposed for these studies, which are Plant Research Investigations, Plant Small Scale Research Investigations, and Plant Early Career Research Investigations. Section 2.2 of this program element provides additional details about the animal studies solicited by this opportunity.
Step 1 proposals are due February 15, 2023 and Step 2 proposals are due May 10, 2023. Visit the solicitation announcement on NASA's NSPIRES system.
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2023 Summer Space Life Sciences Training Program
 NASA's Ames Research Center Space Life Sciences Training Program (SLSTP) will soon be opening the application for the 2023 summer program. We're excited that we will be holding this year's program in-person at Ames Research Center, which will run June 5 through August 11, 2023 (10 weeks). The SLSTP website has more information about the program and will have the link to the online applications when they go online. Tell all your students the deadline to apply is March 1, 2023.
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 Funding Resources for Prospective Researchers
Are you a researcher and wondering where you can find funding opportunities to enable your research to be flown to the orbiting laboratory? There are several sources of funding available to scientists to be used for research and development, payload development, payload processing at NASA facilities, on-orbit operation, and more. Visit this link for a guide to online funding information for space station research.
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Biospecimen Sharing Program
Share | Research | Discover
Rodent Research-18 (RR-18) ISS-Frozen Biospecimen Sharing Program Dissections are Complete!
 The RR-18 study, led by Dr. Vivien Mao from Loma Linda University, focuses on evaluating the mechanisms of response and remodeling in the eyes after exposure to space hazards. The mice were launched on SpaceX-24 in December 2021 and a subset of the mice were frozen on orbit and returned to Earth on SpaceX-25 in August 2022. The Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program (BSP) dissections of the RR-18 ISS-frozen experimental group were successfully completed at Loma Linda University, CA from October 24 – October 31, 2022. The BSP Team collected over 400 vials of tissues not utilized by the RR-18 study and turned over the samples to the NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC) at the end of the dissections. The tissues will be available for request on the Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) biospecimen portal soon!
After nearly a year since the experiment launched, the dissections for RR-18 are complete.
For more information on BSP, please click here.
Check out NBISC to learn more about NBISC and how to request these biospecimens.
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