Cyanobacteria and microalgae in supporting human habitation on Mars

Establishing the first human presence on Mars will be the most technically challenging undertaking yet in the exploration beyond our planet. The remoteness of Mars from Earth, the inhospitable surface conditions including low atmospheric pressure and cold temperatures, and the need for basic resources including water, pose a formidable challenge to this endeavour. The intersection of multiple disciplines will be required to provide solutions for temporary and eventually permanent Martian habitation. This review considers the role cyanobacteria and eukaryotic microalgae (collectively referred to here as ‘microalgae’) may have in supporting missions to the red planet. The current research using these microorganisms in biological life support systems is discussed, with a systematic analysis of their usage in each system conducted. The potential of microalgae to provide astronauts with oxygen, food, bio-polymers and pharmaceuticals is considered. An overview of microalgal experiments in space missions across the last 60 years is presented, and the research exploring the technical challenges of cultivation on Mars is discussed. From these findings, an argument for culturing microalgae in subterranean bioreactors is proposed. Finally, future synthetic biology approaches for enhancing the cyanobacterial/microalgal role in supporting human deep-space exploration are presented. We show that microalgae hold significant promise for providing solutions to many problems faced by the first Martian settlers, however these can only be realised with significant infrastructure and a reliable power source

ADA: an open-source software platform for plotting and analysis of data from laboratory photobioreactors

Algal biotechnology has received significant attention over the past two decades in fields ranging from biofuels to cosmeceuticals. However, the development of domesticated or genetically engineered microalgal strains for commercial applications depends on accurate and reliable growth data. To this end, several companies have developed lab-scale photobioreactors (PBRs) that enable precision control of conditions and automated growth recording. Whilst the transition from manual control of conditions and measurements to automated systems has allowed researchers to greatly improve the accuracy and scope of cultivation experiments, it has also presented novel challenges. The most pertinent of these being the analysis of the copious quantities of data produced. A standard PBR experiment can contain tens or even hundreds of thousands of data points, and often features outliers, noise, and a requirement for datasets to be calibrated with a standard curve or merged with replicates. Furthermore, complex analysis of multiple curves may be required in order to extract information such as the gradient or fit to a growth model. This can be laborious, time consuming and is not standardized between research groups. Proprietary software provided with most PBRs tends to lack these more advanced features and is typically unable to process data from other PBR manufacturers. To address these issues, we have developed the Algal Data Analyser (ADA), an open-source software platform providing the tools to rapidly plot and analyse microalgal data. ADA can simultaneously interpret datasets from three major PBR suppliers (Algenuity, Industrial Plankton, Photon Systems Instruments), and can also incorporate data from manual readings. Users can rapidly produce standardized, publication ready plots, and analyse multiple growth curves in parallel. Future iterations of ADA will include compatibility with datasets from other PBR suppliers as they become available, with the aim of making it a universal platform for all PBR data