 News & Announcements
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Hello, Space Biology Supporter!
 Sciencetasia is a video montage showcasing science in space including plant growth aboard the International Space Station. Produced by NASA Johnson Space Center, this video includes a heartwarming musical accompaniment with a piece from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" - the Waltz of the Flowers. Enjoy!
 In a new NASA video, Space Biology Principal Investigator Dr. Jamie Foster of the University of Florida discusses her research on the effects of microgravity on the symbiosis between the bobtail squid Euprymna scolopes and its beneficial symbiont marine bacteria Vibrio fischeri.
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 Inspiring the Next Generation
NASA STAR Program Graduates its Fourth Group of Cohorts
 The fourth group of participants in the virtual NASA STAR (Spaceflight Technology, Applications and Research) program graduated on February 27th. This year, 30 STAR participants were citizens of 10 countries at multiple career stages from postdoctoral scholars to full professors in academia, as well as investigators in research institutes and industry. They had a wide range of expertise covering molecular and cellular biology, microbiology, fungal biology, botany and agriculture, astrobiology, bioengineering and computational biology.
The STAR program is focused on learning fundamental space biology and the practical aspects of conducting biological research in space.
The solicitation for the next STAR course will open on NSPIRES on April 1st, 2024 and the next course will take place between September 2024 – February 2025. If you're not yet registered in the NSPIRES system, then make sure you create an account and sign up to receive notifications to receive the upcoming announcement.
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Celebrating a Year of Open Science
Join us for the Culminating Conference March 21 to 22, 2024.
 Dr. Lauren Sanders from the Open Science Data Repository team at NASA Ames Research Center will be presenting on March 22 at 10:30am Pacific on the topic, "Open Science Data for Space Biology and Health Research." Register now to participate.
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 Spaceflight News
MABL-A On-Orbit Operations Completed
 The Space Biology-sponsored MABL-A investigation (Role of Mesenchymal Stem Cells in Microgravity Induced Bone Loss) completed on-orbit operations on February 16th. MABL-A launched on NG-20 on January 30th, and samples will return on SpX-30 in April for further analysis by the Principal Investigator.
MABL-A assesses the effects of microgravity on bone marrow mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), specifically their capacity to secrete bone forming and bone dissolving cytokines (small secreted proteins that affect other cells). MSCs produce bone-forming cells and are known to play a role in making and repairing skeletal tissues. Results could provide a better understanding of the basic molecular mechanisms of bone loss caused by spaceflight and normal aging on Earth. (Image, right: MABL-A samples being processed on the ISS)
The MABL-A experiment is funded by a Space Biology grant to Dr. Abba Zubair of the Mayo Clinic.
NG-20 Launches Space Biology Experiments to the ISS
BRIC-25 Microbiology Experiment
The Biological Research in Canisters-25 (BRIC-25) microbiology experiment launched to the ISS aboard NG-20 on January 30. The BRIC-25 payload consists Staphylococcus aureus bacterial cultures, which will be studied to understand the effect of Low Earth Orbit on the physiology, cell-to-cell communication, and virulence of the bacterial pathogen Staphylococcus aureus.
 The spaceflight experiment will begin aboard the ISS when the crew injects growth media into the Petri dishes. The bacteria will be grown for 48 hours then the BRICs will be immediately placed in the -80°C freezer. All of the frozen bacterial samples will be analyzed after they return to Earth.
Results from this study could support more refined predictions about the risk that S. aureus poses to astronauts during flight and help protect their health on future missions. S. aureus can cause a wide variety of devastating infections, many of which result from the ability of S. aureus to grow as biofilm, its wide arsenal of secreted virulence factors, and its highly adaptive metabolism.
 BRIC-25 is funded through a Space Biology grant titled, “Assessing the Impact of Agr Quorum Sensing on Staphylococcus aureus Physiology in the Space Flight Environment” to Principal Investigator Dr. Kelly Rice of the University of Florida.
APEX-10 Plant (Tomato) Experiment
 The Advanced Plant Experiment-10 (APEX-10) tomato experiment also launched to the ISS aboard NG-20. The APEX-10 payload consisted of Petri plates with Red Robin tomato seeds (Lycopersicum esculentum) on nutrient media; some Petri plates included fungal spores of a beneficial microbe (Trichoderma harzianum), some Petri plates did not have the beneficial microbe, and some had T. harzianum alone.
APEX-10 tests whether the beneficial microbe Trichoderma harzianum confers increased stress resilience and improved growth in tomato seedlings (Lycopersicum esculentum) when the two are grown together in microgravity.
The plates will be installed into the Veggie facility for growth initiation. After 14 days of growth, the seedlings will be harvested on orbit, preserved with a rapid freeze technique, and cold-stowed immediately at -80˚C or below.
After return to Earth, the PI team will analyze the growth, use isotopic analysis to monitor photosynthetic water use efficiency, monitor alterations in cell wall composition, and nutrient uptake to gain a greater understanding of how plants and microbes respond to spaceflight and how this environment may affect their interactions.
This research is testing to see if some of the negative effects of spaceflight on plant growth and development can be improved by interactions with beneficial microbes.
 The APEX-10 ISS experiment is funded by a Space Biology grant titled, “Spaceflight Effects on Plant-Microbe Interactions' to Dr. Simon Gilroy of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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 New Discoveries
Two Consecutive Spaceflight Experiments Show Conserved Plant Responses to Microgravity
 Dr. Imara Perera of North Carolina State University was the Principal Investigator for two International Space Station plant experiments; Plant Signaling (PS) and Plant RNA Regulation (PRR). In a recently published paper, her analysis shows RNA-Seq analysis of shoot samples from both PS and PRR plant samples revealed a significant overlap of genes differentially expressed in microgravity between the two experiments.
 Relative to onboard 1 g controls, genes involved in transcriptional regulation, shoot development, and response to auxin and light were upregulated in microgravity in both experiments. Conversely, genes involved in defense response, abiotic stress, Ca++ signaling, and cell wall modification were commonly downregulated in both datasets. Findings from samples across both spaceflight experiments uncover transcriptional changes that are unique to microgravity and highlight the validity and importance of an onboard 1 g control.
Understanding how plants adapt to the space environment is essential, as plants will be a valuable component of long duration space missions. Several spaceflight experiments have focused on transcriptional profiling as a means of understanding plant adaptation to microgravity.
Image: Representative Images of Plant Signaling and Plant RNA Regulation Seed Cassettes flown aboard the ISS. Representative images of seedling morphology across µ g and 1 g conditions taken at the end of each experiment.
Unexpected Effects of Spaceflight on Hosts and Their Parasites
New results from the ISS experiment Fruit Fly-3 (FFL-03) are in!
 Dr. Shubha Govind of the City College of New York published her findings from the FFL-3 experiment launched to the ISS in 2017. This experiment demonstrates that spaceflight enhances immune gene expression and tumor development in fruit flies. In this spaceflight experiment, naive and parasitized ground and space flies from a tumor-free control and a blood tumor-bearing mutant strain were examined. Inflammation-related genes were activated in space in both fly strains that were flown aboard the ISS. Drosophila parasitoid wasps were found to develop in space without losing virulence. The offspring from the wasps that were returned to Earth from the FFL-3 experiment showed visible alterations. Mutant wasps with a new, previously undocumented wing color and shape were isolated post-flight and will be invaluable for host-parasite studies on Earth. (Image, at right: newly-developed parasitic wasp emerging from a fruit fly's pupal case. Credit: S. Govind.)
Experiments with the Drosophila model organism and studies on astronauts over the last decade have revealed how highly conserved innate immune functions and mechanisms are altered in space. As humans become a space-faring species, they must confront the dual and long-term challenges of microgravity and radiation. It is important to evaluate changes in pathogen or parasite virulence in space in the context of their natural hosts.
 The Fruit Fly-03 ISS experiment was funded by a Space Biology grant, "Does Spaceflight Alter the Virulence of a Natural Parasite of Drosophila?" to Dr. Shubha Govind of the City College of New York. This article is available online.
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Biospecimen Sharing Program
Share | Research | Discover
 Announcing the NASA Space Microbial Culture Collection (SMCC)
The NASA SMCC is a repository for collections of space microbes originated by NASA scientists and offers digital (genomic, phenotypic, and rich metadata) and physical formats (the isolates themselves) of space microbes which can be requested for non-commercial research purposes.
To find out more about submitting a gravitational or space-associated microorganismal collection to the NASA SMCC or requesting isolates please contact mo.kaze@nasa.gov for more information.
Help NASA maximize the scientific return from biological spaceflight investigations and encourage broader participation of the research community in space biology-related research. Non-human biospecimens are dissected, collected, and preserved by the Space Biology Biospecimen Sharing Program (BSP) team at NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). These biospecimens and associated Metadata are made available through NASA’s Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC). They are searchable and available for request on the Life Sciences Data Archive public website. Flight and ground control biospecimens are available from COSMOS, NASA’s space shuttle missions, and International Space Station (ISS) investigations.
What will your discoveries unfold?
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