To boldly go where no microbe has gone before” – fascination and responsible of the research area space microbiology

With international plans being formulated for solar system exploration, either using robotic probes or with human crews, microbiologists are confronted with exciting new opportunities and challenging demands. The search for signatures of life forms on another planet or moon in our solar system is one of the most prominent goals of these enterprises. Our neighbor planet Mars and Jupiter’s moon Europa are considered key targets for the search for life beyond Earth. By analogy, with terrestrial extremophilic microbial communities, e.g., those thriving in extreme environments (such as deserts) and/or those exposed to intense UV radiation, additional potential extraterrestrial habitats may be identified. Field studies with microbial communities in those extreme environments as well as microbiological studies under simulated planetary environments - in space as well as in the laboratory - will provide valuable information for preparing the “search-for-life” experiments on missions to those solar system bodies. Another important role of microbiologists in space exploration concerns the planetary protection initiative. Here robotic orbiters, entry probes, or landers can unintentionally introduce terrestrial microorganisms to a planetary target of interest. This may destroy the opportunity to examine these bodies in their pristine condition. Depending on the target and type of mission, the planetary protection guidelines require cleaning and, in specific cases, sterilization of the spacecraft or components to avoid contamination with terrestrial organisms. The success of the cleaning and/or sterilization measures needs to be controlled by establishing a thorough inventory of the bioload prior to launch. Guidelines for bioload measurements, sterilization procedures, and effective planetary protection protocols must be established and implemented. The presence of humans on the surface of the Moon or Mars will substantially increase the capabilities of space research and exploration; however, prior to any human exploratory mission, the critical microbial issues concerning human health and wellbeing need to be addressed. Also the need to understand evolutionary pressures exerted on microorganisms by the spaceflight environment represent additional upcoming paramount tasks for microbiologists. In my talk, I will present data and information on previous, ongoing and future space microbiology/astrobiology activities of the DLR

Design and Ground-Testing of an Inflatable-Rigidizable Structure Experiment in Preparation for Space Flight

As the demand for larger space structures increases, complications arise including physical dimensions, weight, and launch costs. These constraints have forced the space industry to look for smaller, more lightweight, and cost-effective solutions. Future antennas, solar sails, sun shields, and other structures have the potential to be exponentially larger than their launch envelopes. Current research in this area is focused on the use of inflatable, rigidizable structures to reduce payload size and mass, ultimately reducing launch costs. These structures can be used as booms, trusses, wings, or can be configured to almost any simple shape. More complex shapes can be constructed by joining smaller rigidizable/inflatable members together. Analysis of these structures must be accomplished to validate the technology and gather risk mitigation data before they can be widely used in space applications. The Rigidizable, Inflatable, Get-Away-Special Experiment (RIGEX) was created to test structures that meet the aforementioned demand for smaller, more lightweight, and cost effective solutions to launching payloads into space. The purpose of this experiment is to analyze the effects of the space environment on inflatable, rigidizable structural components and validate ground-test procedures for these structures. This thesis primarily details the pressurization system enhancements and validates thermal performance for RIGEX. These enhancements and the increased knowledge of the thermal properties will improve the probability of experiment success

Short Courses: Flexible Learning Opportunities in Informatics

In today’s fast-paced, data-driven world, researchers need to have a good foundation in informatics to store, organize, process, and analyze growing amounts of data. However, not all degree programs offer such training. Obtaining training in informatics on your own can be a daunting task for both new and established researchers who have little informatics experience. Providing educational opportunities appropriate for various skill levels and that mesh with a full-time schedule can remove barriers and foster a collaborative, informatics-savvy community that is better equipped to push science forward. To enhance informatics education in bioinformatics, VCUs Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research of- fers a complementary series of seminars and workshops. These short course offerings introduce attendees to bioinformatics concepts and applications, and provide hands-on experience using online Bioinformatics databases. Bioinformatics 101 (B101) is an 8-week long series of 1-hour seminars focused on introducing topics in bioinformatics related to Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Lectures are application focused and include overviews of NGS technology, practical bioinformatics pipelines, and examples of how the technology can influence downstream bioinformatics analyses. Bioinformatics 102 (B102) is a 5-day, 2 hours per day workshop developed in collaboration with VCU Libraries that provides attendees with hands-on experience accessing and using public data repositories. Sessions include a brief lecture followed by hands-on exercises. A Certificate of Completion is awarded upon meeting certain criteria for either the 101 or 102 courses. Bioinformatics 101 has been offered 3 times with a combined total of 246 registrants, and Bioinformatics 102 has been offered twice with a total of 78 registrants (limited to 30 per session per day). From course surveys, 82% (n=108) and 95% (n=47) of respondents gave B101 and B102 a positive rating, respectively. In addition, 89% of B101 respondents indicated their knowledge was improved, with 100% of B102 respondents indicating the same. A total of 84 and 33 certificates have been awarded for B101 and B102, respectively. The Bioinformatics 101 and 102 courses have become highly anticipated across the university, and have gained the external attention of surrounding businesses and colleges. Registrants have diverse backgrounds including biological, clinical, computational, administrative, librarian, business, and others with a total of 77 departments across VCU and VCU Health represented. Due to this interest, Bioinformatics 101 began offering live online attendance to accommodate those who were unable to travel across campus, or who are attending from outside VCU. This past year, 50% of attendance was online indicating a growing need for flexible education opportunities in informatics. Increasing researcher knowledge of Bioinformatics along with awareness of university resources for informatics support fosters an informatics-savvy research community that is empowered to take advantage of existing and new data sources in the pursuit of new insights and scientific discoveries for the betterment of human health. Future work will include the development of a more comprehensive educational framework by creating new and flexible learning opportunities that will make informatics education easy and convenient for our dedicated researchers

Planck Fluctuations, Measurement Uncertainties and the Holographic Principle

Starting from a critical analysis of recently reported surprisingly large uncertainties in length and position measurements deduced within the framework of quantum gravity, we embark on an investigation both of the correlation structure of Planck scale fluctuations and the role the holographic hypothesis is possibly playing in this context. While we prove the logical independence of the fluctuation results and the holographic hypothesis (in contrast to some recent statements in that direction) we show that by combining these two topics one can draw quite strong and interesting conclusions about the fluctuation structure and the microscopic dynamics on the Planck scale. We further argue that these findings point to a possibly new and generalized form of quantum statistical mechanics of strongly (anti)correlated systems of degrees of freedom in this fundamental regime.Comment: 19 pages, Latex, no figures, some new references, to appear ModPhysLett

Survival of the NASA Mars Odyssey isolate Acinetobacter radioresistens 50v1 on different spaceflight relevant antimicrobial surfaces

Since many years, human mankind travels to space. One of our mayor interests is the health of astronauts and the protection of the spacecraft. Apart from external influences, the microbial burden inside of the International Space Station (ISS) may be dangerous and must be limited to a minimum. To ensure the status and the protection of the crew as well as the spacecraft itself, it is necessary to determine the survival of microorganisms on different surfaces. Microorganisms are constantly changing their strategy of survival, primarily induced by extreme environmental conditions, such as space conditions, compared to their terrestrial habitats. However, the increased levels in resistance and robustness possibly play a sensitive role in evolving new virulence factors in the space environment. One of the bacteria on the NASA Mars Odyssey spacecraft, which have been isolated, is the Gram-negative, non-motile bacterium Acinetobacter radioresistens. Apart from Deinococcus radiodurans, A. radioresistens shows similar levels in radiation and oxidative stress tolerance (McCoy et al., 2012). In our work, we used the strain 50v1, isolated from the surface of the Mars Odyssey spacecraft as well as the type strain DSM6976, which was isolated on Earth from cotton and soil samples. We investigated the resistance regarding in their desiccation tolerance on metallic surfaces including materials with different antimicrobial properties. For those experiments we exposed and desiccated both strains on the different surfaces (such as copperand silver-containing materials) and determined the survival over different time points. First results show a high resistance of the spacecraft isolated strain compared to the type strain. These results give implications about the higher survivability of environmental microorganisms and highlight the essence of bioburden reduction and improve sterilization approaches/techniques for upcoming space exploration missions towards the search for life outside Earth

Half-lives of rp-process waiting point nuclei

We give results of microscopic calculations for the half-lives of various proton-rich nuclei in the mass region A=60-90, which are involved in the astrophysical rp-process, and which are needed as input parameters of numerical simulations in Nuclear Astrophysics. The microscopic formalism consists of a deformed QRPA approach that involves a selfconsistent quasiparticle deformed Skyrme Hartree-Fock basis and residual spin-isospin separable forces in both the particle-hole and particle-particle channels. The strength of the particle-hole residual interaction is chosen to be consistent with the Skyrme effective force and mean field basis, while that of the particle-particle is globally fixed to 0.07 MeV after a judicious choice from comparison to experimental half-lives. We study and discuss the sensitivity of the half-lives to deformation and residual interactions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Eur. Phys. J.

Effects of spaceflight on the proliferation of jejunal mucosal cells

The purpose of this project was to test the hypothesis that the generalized, whole body decrease in synthetic activity due to microgravity conditions encountered during spaceflight would be demonstrable in cells and tissues characterized by a rapid rate of turnover. Jejunal mucosal cells were chosen as a model since these cells are among the most rapidly proliferating in the body. Accordingly, the percentage of mitotic cells present in the crypts of Lieberkuhn in each of 5 rats flown on the COSMOS 2044 mission were compared to the percentage of mitotic cells present in the crypts in rats included in each of 3 ground control groups (i.e., vivarium, synchronous and caudal-elevated). No significant difference (p greater than .05) was detected in mitotic indices between the flight and vivarium group. Although the ability of jejunal mucosal cells to divide by mitosis was not impaired in flight group, there was, however, a reduction in the length of villi and depth of crypts. The concommitant reduction in villus length and crypth depth in the flight group probably reflects changes in connective tissue components within the core of villi