Microbiology – NASA
Spaceflight poses a risk of adverse health effects due to interactions between microorganisms, their hosts, and their environment. The JSC Microbiology team addresses the benefits and risks of microorganisms, including infectious diseases, allergens, environmental and food contamination, and the impacts of changes in environmental and human microbial ecology aboard spacecraft. The team includes certified medical technologists, environmental microbiologists, mycologists and biosafety professionals.
The JSC Microbiology Laboratory is a vital part of the Human Health and Performance Directorate and is responsible for addressing crew health and environmental issues related to microbial infections, allergens and contamination. This responsibility is ensured by operational monitoring and investigative research using classical microbiological, advanced molecular and immunohistochemical techniques. This research has resulted in a significant number of peer-reviewed presentations and publications contributing to the field of microbiology with articles in journals such as Infection and Immunity, Journal of Infectious Disease and Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nature Reviews Microbiology, and Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
As a functional part of the crew health care system and in support of environmental control and life support systems engineers, the microbiology laboratory team defines 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 negatively affect crew health or system performance.
Microbiologists are also part of the team when abnormal events occur that could affect the health of the crew or the operation of life support systems. Spaceflight food samples are also evaluated before flight to reduce the risk of infectious disease to the crew.
- ABI DNA sequencer
- Illumina MiSeq Desktop Sequencer
- MinION DNA/RNA sequencers from Oxford Nanopore Technologies
- Agilent Bioanalyzer
- VITEK 2 Microbial identification
- Spatial analog bioreactors
Sarah Wallace, Ph.D.
Hang Nguyen, PhD
