Luis Zea

CU Boulder space yeast experiment featured on NPR

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 21:21:14 +0000

CU Boulder space yeast experiment featured on NPR Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/06/2022 - 14:21

The Artemis 1 spacecraft is in orbit around the Moon this week, carrying 12,000 varieties of yeast as part of an experiment led by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The yeast cells will help scientists answer a critical question in space exploration: How might human bodies fare in the extreme environment of deep space, where astronauts could be exposed to the equivalent of thousands of chest X-rays’ worth of radiation on every voyage.

NPR interviewed Luis Zea, a former Smead Aerospace research professor who is leading the project, and Tobias Niederwieser, a research associate in BioServe Space Technologies and engineer on the team.

Listen to the piece at NPR...

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NASA launch will carry CU baker's yeast experiment to the moon and back

Anonymous — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 15:02:08 +0000

NASA launch will carry CU baker's yeast experiment to the moon and back Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/29/2022 - 09:02

A team of researchers led by CU Boulder is sending some unexpected hitchhikers to the moon: Twelve bags filled with baker’s yeast, the same kind of hard-working cells that make bread rise and ferment beer and wine.

As early as Friday, a rocket taller than the Statue of Liberty is scheduled to blast off from a launch pad in Florida, carrying NASA’s new Orion space capsule into Earth’s orbit for the first time. From there, the spacecraft, designed to transport four astronauts, will begin a 42-day journey to the moon and back to Earth.

There aren’t any humans aboard this mission, called Artemis 1. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be passengers. Three human mannequins, named Moonikin Campos, Helga and Zohar, will fly aboard Orion—as will four biological experiments, including one designed by a team at BioServe Space Technologies, a center in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences.

The experiment is tucked under one of the seats in a case about the size of a shoebox. Inside, millions of yeast cells will help scientists answer a critical question in space exploration: How might human bodies fare in the extreme environment of deep space, where astronauts could be exposed to the equivalent of thousands of chest X-rays’ worth of radiation on every voyage.

“Nothing like this has happened for 50 years,” said Tobias Niederwieser, a research associate at BioServe and an engineer on the team. “The last time humans sent anything biological on a return trip to the moon was during Apollo 17 in 1972.”

But it’s also just the beginning.

Artemis 1 is the first step in NASA’s new era of lunar exploration. The space agency plans to launch human astronauts, including the first woman, to the moon’s surface later this decade.

Researchers at BioServe are trying to keep those lunar explorers safe. Once the yeast cultures return to Earth, the team will retrieve the cells to study their DNA—and potentially find clues that could help scientists prevent or treat the effects of radiation sickness in astronauts.

Luis Zea, a former researcher at BioServe now at the Colorado-based company Sierra Space, leads the project. He said it has made him look at the moon in a new way.

“I don’t see it the same,” Zea said. “Because I know that Orion will be orbiting it soon with the hardware and science that we worked on for four years.”

Far from home

For Zea and his colleagues, this experiment, officially called Deep Space Radiation Genomics (DSRG), has been a long time in the making.

Over nearly 35 years, researchers at BioServe have helped to fly hundreds of biological experiments into space. Most of them have traveled to the International Space Station (ISS), which orbits about 250 miles above Earth.

Orion is a different kind of laboratory. For a start, the spacecraft is flying much farther—hundreds of thousands of miles farther. In the process, it will travel beyond Earth’s Van Allen Belts, a pair of doughnut-shaped bands of radiation that surround the planet and shield it from the sun’s most dangerous rays. And unlike experiments on the ISS, no astronauts will be around to help run DSRG.

“The entire experiment is battery-powered,” Niederwieser said. “We can’t get any data from it. We can’t send it a signal telling it when to start.”

Instead, Niederwieser and his team designed the shoebox-sized laboratory to automatically detect when it is far enough from Earth, then turn itself on. Once that happens, small pumps will fill the bags of yeast with a nutrient-rich fluid, and the cells will begin to grow and reproduce.

The yeast cells themselves are a marvel of engineering. Working with researchers at the University of British Columbia in Canada, the BioServe team developed roughly 12,000 mutant strains of yeast for the experiment. Some of these organisms are missing certain genes, while others carry extra copies of those same snippets of code.

Researchers at the German Aerospace Center and the Universidad de Valle de Guatemala also contributed to the effort. More than a dozen students have taken part in the experiment, including four from CU Boulder.

Which of those mutants survive the trip to the moon, and which don’t, could give scientists new clues about how radiation might affect human astronauts. Zea explained that yeast cells might not look a lot like big primates, but they share about 70% of their genes with humans. These cultures, in other words, will provide a window into how certain genes, or mechanisms for repairing damaged genes, might be critical for helping organisms survive in the harshness of space.

“What we may be able to do is give future space explorers medication that enhance the efficacy of those DNA repair mechanisms,” Zea said. “It’s kind of like an anti-oxidant that will help mitigate the effects of radiation.”

Coming home

Before that happens, however, the team will need to wait—and wait.

The trip on Orion is just the first leg of the experiment. The researchers want to know how space radiation affects the microbes. To tease that out, BioServe will grow identical cultures of yeast on the International Space Station and on the ground in Boulder.

The box on Orion itself has a long journey ahead of it. Niederwiser and Zea handed the experiment over to NASA at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in mid-August. Once Orion touches back down on Earth later this fall, the Colorado researchers will have to wait for a team to retrieve the capsule and its biological experiments.

“It's especially nerve racking because we will not know if the unit has operated as intended until we get the box back in two or three months,” Niederwieser said.

He and his colleagues are confident, however, that their tiny space explorers won’t let them down.

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Zea selected for National Academies Decadal Survey

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 18:41:11 +0000

Zea selected for National Academies Decadal Survey Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/17/2021 - 12:41

Jeff Zehnder

Luis Zea has been chosen to serve on the Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences Research in Space steering committee by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Zea, an assistant research professor in the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences and BioServe Space Technologies at the University of Colorado Boulder is one of 17 researchers from across the United States selected for the panel.

The body will review the state of current and emerging space-related biological and physical sciences research and create recommendations for NASA to advance scientific knowledge, meet human and robotic exploration mission needs, and provide terrestrial benefits for 2023 - 2032.

“These documents inform NASA on which science and technology development aspects to focus during the next decade,” Zea said. “These are great scientists, engineers, and academicians in the Steering Committee, I am honored and humbled to be part of it.”

Zea’s research involves space microbiology, space biofilms, and space biomining. He has been part of numerous International Space Station research missions and is leading a radiation investigation that will launch aboard the Artemis 1 flight planned to orbit the Moon later this year.

Find out more about the National Academies Decadal Survey at their website.

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Mold in space: NASA grant to study space station fungus

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Nov 2019 15:21:04 +0000

Mold in space: NASA grant to study space station fungus Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/01/2019 - 09:21

Jeff Zehnder

Updated Nov. 4 to reflect the successful launch to ISS.

Top: Graduate students Rylee Schauer (from left) and Pamela Flores with Carla Hoehn, BioServe’s implementation project manager and Principal Investigator Luis Zea.
Above: Principal Investigator Luis Zea working in the lab.

Biofilm formation inside the condensate plumbing at the inlet to the Russian condensate processor.

The International Space Station has a problem with fungus and mold—and the University of Colorado Boulder has sent new research to space to find solutions.

It is living and growing in secret aboard the station, hidden behind panels and inside pipes and conduit. It can live on almost any surface, and will slowly consume whatever it touches—plastic, metal, glass. It does not discriminate, and it is a real problem.

BioServe Space Technologies at CU Boulder is investigating potential fixes. The center has been awarded a $750,000 grant by NASA to increase our understanding of the organisms and investigate ways to stop them. On November 2, 2019, Northrop Grumman successfully launched a cargo resupply mission to ISS with BioServe’s experiments on board.

“They’ve found cultures of these microbes on the shuttle, Mir, and ISS. Every long-term mission has seen a growth of microbes where you don’t want to see them,” said Rylee Schauer, an aerospace engineering sciences master’s student working on the project.

The microbes are a type of fungus or bacteria called a biofilm. They represent a threat in space because they eat through the surfaces they grow on, a process called biodegredation. Biofilm formation also increases the risk of human illness.

“It shows up behind control panels and has gotten into heat exchangers and pipe systems. On Mir, they once noticed a pretty bad stench. Looking for its source, they pulled off a panel and found a lot of mold. That was the smell, but it was also consuming plastic cabling in that area,” said Luis Zea, an assistant research professor in BioServe and the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences who is leading the NASA grant.

Biofilms are especially bad news for NASA as the agency plans for future missions to distant destinations, like Mars. Currently, if a biofilm were to irreparably damage a component on the ISS, NASA could send a replacement part on a regular resupply mission. That will not be an option if the ship in question is millions of miles away.

With that in mind, Zea’s team is conducting a series of controlled experiments to the ISS later that will investigate how and why the organisms grow. They will also be testing novel materials that could inhibit growth of biofilms.

While their work is focused on space, it could have broad applications here on Earth as biofilms can and do thrive in almost any environment.

“Biofilms are how bacteria transmit disease. Most diseases in hospitals are transmitted through biofilms,” Zea said.

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�鶹��Ժ form a core portion of the team at BioServe; Zea calls them the “backbone of this project.”

“The research they’re doing is an example of the opportunities here that are typically not available until students are in the workforce,” Zea said. “We’re giving students the chance to work on real life projects.”

“I am leading the bacterial work,” said Pamela Flores, a PhD student in molecular, cellular and developmental biology. “I am in charge of ground-based experiments to validate the spaceflight operations and post-flight data analysis protocols.”

Schauer, meanwhile, is heading up the fungal laboratory work.

“I have a background in biology, but space is super interesting and this is a meeting of the two,” Schauer said. “I’m doing a lot of the lab work, physical testing, and analysis.”

In addition to CU Boulder, the research team also includes NASA, the German Aerospace Center, Saarland University in Germany, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Universidad del Valle de Guatemala.

The International Space Station has a problem with fungus and mold—and the University of Colorado Boulder has sent new research to space to find solutions. It is living and growing in secret aboard the station, hidden behind panels and inside...

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CU Boulder explores mining in space with bacteria

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 14:30:09 +0000

CU Boulder explores mining in space with bacteria Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/01/2019 - 08:30

Jeff Zehnder

Luis Zea is investigating the possibility of mining metals from asteroids in space using an unlikely agent: bacteria.

It may sound like science fiction, but so-called biomining is already a reality on Earth. Now, Zea, and his co-investigator Jesse Colangelo in the University of Colorado Boulder’s Department of Geological Sciences have earned a seed grant from the CU Boulder Research and Innovation Office to study its possibilities in space.

“About 15% of our copper and 5% of our gold are already extracted here on Earth using bacteria,” said Zea, an assistant research professor in BioServe Space Technologies and the Ann and H.J. Smead Department of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at CU Boulder.

Biomining is a process where mined materials are placed in vats with water and specialized bacteria that extract the desired metals from the surrounding rock. It's an alternative to traditional mining, where harsh chemicals are often used to separate gold or other metals.

“It’s actually cheaper to do than regular mining,” said Tadg Forward, a molecular, cellular and developmental biology senior working with Zea on the project. “You just pour water and the bacteria on the rocks, and you get a product out of it.”

They will be investigating the performance of the bacterium Shewanella oneidensis for the extraction of iron from lunar, Martian and asteroid regolith simulant under simulated reduced-gravity conditions.

Zea said there's a huge potential financial upside to space mining: many asteroids are chock-full of metals that are heavily used in electronics and other products but are hard to find on Earth.

“In space, there are virtually limitless amounts of some of the 44 endangered elements that could face supply limitations here in the future,” Zea said. “Future wars could be driven by access to them, so if we can find a new source, it helps mitigate that risk.”

He notes NASA is planning a robotic exploration mission in 2022 to one such asteroid, 16 Psyche, which is located between Mars and Jupiter and is estimated to contain $700 quintillion worth of nickel, iron and precious metals.

“Its value is more than the total amount of all money in circulation worldwide,” Zea said.

Rendering of the asteroid 16 Psyche.

Mining in space could be more than just a financial boon. It could also provide an easily accessible source of metals for the construction of future space stations or deep space probes. Having access to such materials would allow structures to be built entirely in space, reducing the need for expensive launches of completed, heavy payloads from Earth.

“Space biomining may sound pretty sci-fi today, but it will be a reality in the future,” Zea said. “We’re uniquely positioned in BioServe to be on the ground floor of this work. We already do research on microgravity and microbiology, and this particular bacteria has been to space before, so we know it can survive in microgravity.”

Zea also envisions a further environmental benefit of a future with off-world mining: the potential that Earth could be reserved exclusively for living and all heavy industry and mining could be conducted entirely in space.

In addition to Smead Aerospace and BioServe Space Technologies, the team also includes researchers from the CU Boulder Department of Geological Sciences and the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, as well as assistance from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and Crow Industries Inc., a U.S. startup knowledgeable about space in-situ resource utilization.

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CU Boulder lands a slot on Artemis flight around the moon

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 17:32:20 +0000

CU Boulder lands a slot on Artemis flight around the moon Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/04/2019 - 10:32

Jeff Zehnder , Rochelle Zamani

A little piece of Colorado is going to the moon.

When NASA launches Artemis 1, its first mission to orbit the moon since 1972, experiments from the University of Colorado Boulder will be aboard.

The space agency has announced a CU Boulder BioServe Space Technologies project led by Smead Aerospace Assistant Research Professor Luis Zea has earned one of four slots for Space Biology Program research aboard Artemis. Zea’s team’s work will help researchers better understand how living organisms are affected by deep space in preparation for human missions to the moon and eventually Mars.

Radiation in Space

The goal is to study DNA damage and protection from dangerous, space-based radiation that comes from the sun and galactic cosmic rays and is a major concern for long-duration missions.

Humans on Earth and in low orbit, such as those aboard the International Space Station, are protected from destructive radiation due to the Van Allen belts, an area of magnetic charged particles that encircle our planet. However, travel past them and you can be hit with alarming amounts of radiation.

“When radiation hits DNA, it can cause damage. Our bodies have repair mechanisms, but they sometimes fail. If the damage occurs on an important area of the genome, it can have harmful consequences – this is one of the bases of cancer,” Zea said.

Brewing Science

For the study, Artemis will carry a series of cell cultures containing an unusual substance -- Brewer’s yeast. It may sound like a strange choice, but yeast genes are more similar to human DNA than you might expect.

“About 70 percent of the essential genes in yeast have counterparts in the human genome,” Corey Nislow at the University of British Columbia, the other principal investigator, said. “We’ll measure their ability to survive under radiation conditions and quantify which cultures do better than others.”

Millions of Cells

NASA has past experience with higher space radiation levels through the Apollo astronauts, but their time in space was brief compared to lengthy missions proposed for the future. The longest moon mission, Apollo 17, spent 12 days in space. A manned flight to Mars is estimated to take four to six months just to get to the red planet; it does not include any time spent on the surface or coming back to Earth.

“It would also be hard to do statistics with data from just a couple of astronauts, but we can fly millions and millions of yeast cells in a volume similar to that of a writing pen,” Zea said.

Artemis is currently slated for an August 29, 2022 launch from Cape Canaveral.

Zea is one of two principal investigators on the project, along with Corey Nislow at the University of British Columbia. Additional collaboration has come from Zea’s colleagues at CU Boulder’s BioServe Space Technologies, Christopher Carr from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Ralf Moeller of the German Aerospace Center.

Rating Radiation

► Chest X-ray 0.06 mSv
► Average annual exposure for a person on Earth 3.6 mSv
► Annual limit for Nuclear Plant workers 50 mSv
► Lowest annual dose linked to an increased cancer risk 100 mSv
► Six month mission to the International Space Station 160 mSv
► NASA annual limit for astronauts in low-Earth orbit 500 mSv
► Estimated Mars Mission (3 yrs) 1,200 mSv
► NASA career exposure limit for 35 year old astronaut 2,500 mSv (male) 1,750 mSv (female)

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Bioserve research associate earns NASA Space Biology Program grant

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 22:32:15 +0000

Bioserve research associate earns NASA Space Biology Program grant Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 07/05/2018 - 16:32

NASA's Space Biology Program has selected 15 grant proposals to award across three appendices released under the Research Opportunities and Space Biology (ROSBio) Omnibus. Thirteen of the awards will simulate microgravity on the ground to characterize how biological systems respond to changes in gravity. One of the remaining two awards will use parabolic flights to characterize how cells in mammals respond to transient changes in gravity and the other will use an Antarctic balloon flight to expose bacteria to the radiation environment of the stratosphere, which shares similarities to the radiation environment of space. These NASA-sponsored studies will help grow the collective knowledge to help researchers solve some of the challenges confronting human exploration of space, as well as translate to new biological tools or applications on Earth.

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Blog: CU Boulder experiments arrive at International Space Station

Anonymous — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 21:45:05 +0000

Blog: CU Boulder experiments arrive at International Space Station Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/04/2018 - 15:45

NASA and SpaceX’s CRS-14 mission with the Dragon spacecraft carrying experiments developed by the University of Colorado Boulder's Bioserve Space Technologies and researchers at the University of Kansas has successfully arrived at the International Space Station. The experiments center on reproductive biology and will study the effects of microgravity on sperm function.

The launch at Cape Canaveral was attended by Bioserve Research Associate Luis Zea and Sam Piper, a CU Boulder aerospace undergraduate senior who played a major role in hardware development for the experiments.

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Microbes in Microgravity - BioServe In ISS Magazine

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 23:44:02 +0000

Microbes in Microgravity - BioServe In ISS Magazine Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/09/2017 - 16:44

CU Boulder research associate Luis Zea working at BioServe Space Technologies.

By observing the health of astronauts that travel into space, scientists have learned that microgravity has important effects on the human body, causing substantial changes to our bones and muscles. However, scientists have also found that microgravity has dramatic effects on far smaller living organisms, such as bacteria.

CU Boulder's BioServe Space Technologies has been working with astronauts aboard the International Space Station to better understand why bacteria act differently in space. The research could eventually lead to better vaccines and methods to treat bacterial infections.

The work, a project of BioServe research associate Luis Zea's team, is featured in the latest issue of Upward, the official magazine of the International Space Station National Laboratory. You can download the full issue at their website.

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Bioserve Partnership Investigates Why Bacteria Behave Differently in Space

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 18:02:22 +0000

Bioserve Partnership Investigates Why Bacteria Behave Differently in Space Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/28/2016 - 11:02

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