Spaceflight poses a risk of adverse health effects due to interactions between microorganisms, their hosts, and the environment. The JSC Microbiology team examines the benefits and risks associated with microorganisms, including infectious diseases, allergens, environmental and food contamination, and the impact of changes in environmental and human microbial ecology on board spacecraft. The team includes certified medical technologists, environmental microbiologists, mycologists and biosafety specialists.
The JSC Microbiology Laboratory is a critical component of the Human Health and Productivity Directorate and is responsible for addressing crew health and environmental issues related to microbial infection, allergens and pollution. This responsibility is achieved through operational monitoring and investigative research using classical microbiological, modern molecular and immunohistochemical methods. This research has resulted in a significant number of presentations and peer-reviewed publications contributing to the field of microbiology, with articles in journals such as Infection and Immunity, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nature Reviews Microbiology, and Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
As a functional part of the crew health system and in support of the environmental control and life support systems engineers, the microbiology laboratory team determines requirements, coordinates and analyzes microbial sampling and analysis of air, surface and water samples. These environmental samples, including pre-flight and in-flight samples, are reanalyzed to ensure that microorganisms do not adversely affect crew health or system performance.
Microbiologists are also part of the team when anomalous events occur that could affect the health of the crew or the operation of life support systems. Spaceflight food samples are also tested before flight to reduce the risk of infectious disease to the crew.
- DNA sequencer ABI
- Illumina MiSeq Benchtop Sequencer
- DNA/RNA sequencers Oxford Nanopore Technologies MinION
- Agilent Bioanalyzer
- VITEK 2 Microorganism identification
- Space analog bioreactors
Sarah Wallace, Ph.D.
Hang Nguyen, Ph.D.
