Space Biology

The SpaceBio group at the Lab is blueprinting the interdisciplinary frontier in Space Biology and Medicine for Pakistan. With more and more manned missions anticipated in the near future towards making human beings a multi planetary species, space biology and medicine, that looks at the hazards of space travel on living organisms and human beings to studying the potential of life beyond on earth, is an exciting new frontier in science.

Our work is split between dry-lab analyses using computational methods which we use to interrogate biological datasets especially from the NASA Gene Lab repository as well as prototyping in Lab and on the field.

Problem-solving for space also offers a very neat overlap with problem-solving for resources and space constrained environments on earth which the Lab finds very exciting. For example, delivering diagnostics to rural populations in far-flung and inaccessible regions or teaching science using innovative ultra-low-cost tools and methods (sometimes referred to as frugal science).

Members of the group have worked on diverse projects from studying the characterisation of a new martian soil simulant and testing the survival and growth of bacteria, effects of microgravity on human physiology using NASA’s Gene Lab data, engineering radiation-resistant microbial chassis inspired by extremophiles, symbiotic microbial-plant ecosystems to sustain food production on planetary surfaces like Mars and searching for biosignatures in lunar meteorites, to uncover traces of life beyond Earth.

The group is also exploring avenues towards our ultimate ambition of designing and developing a CubeSat with a biology payload which we are exploring with friends both in SUPARCO and NASA.