In September 2020, researchers in the Raman Lab launched a small box containing viruses and bacteria into space to investigate the ways microbes such as those residing in our guts respond to space conditions. Now, the bacteria and phages (viruses that infect bacteria) have returned to Madison with hints at how space travel may impact the gut microbiome and clues about how to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections on Earth. The researchers’ findings are reported in Public Library of Science (PLOS) Biology.
“Space is such a unique environment,” says Philip Huss, a postdoctoral researcher in the Raman Lab and a lead author on paper. “It has the potential to reveal possibilities for how phages can evolve that are hidden on Earth.”
Read about how the microbes mutated in space and watch a video describing the process of designing an experiment fit for space travel here.
This research was supported by funding from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (Grant HDTRA1-16-1-0049).