Currently, there is a secret extra member of Crew 11 on the International Space Station, a bacteria that can cause illness.
Or at least, such bacteria will soon be on track and growing. Scientists at Shiva Medical Center in Israel have teamed up with US-based space technology company Spacetango to develop a study to investigate how microgravity affects the growth of certain bacterial species that cause human disease. To separate it, researchers grow different strains of bacteria under microgravity, freeze the bacteria at -80 degrees Celsius, bring the sample back to Earth, and see how it grew differently from the same bacteria grown on their home planet.
The bacterial strains involved are E. coli, Salmonella Bongoli and Salmonella Typhurium, which were launched on Friday, August 1st, towards the International Space Station (ISS) on NASA’s Crew 11 mission, which successfully launched SpaceX (editor’s note: it was docked to the ISS on August 2nd and can now survive).
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Scientists have already studied how lack of gravity affects the way bacteria grow, and research from NASA is generally already underway to study bacteria in space. However, researchers behind the current ISS and bacterial missions are particularly hoping to bring in household data that will help control spread of infectious diseases. At the very least, it helps experts find ways to stop bacteria from developing antibiotic resistance.
“We know that spatial conditions affect bacteria’s behavior. How they grow, express genes, and acquire properties such as antibiotic resistance and pathogenicity,” said Ohad Gal-Mor, director of the Institute for Infectious Disease Research at Sheba Medical Center, in a statement.
Related: Unknown strains of bacteria found at Tiangon Space Station in China
“For the first time, this experiment allows us to systematically and molecularly map how the genetic expression profiles of several pathogenic bacteria change changes in the universe.”
The effects of microgravity on astronaut health and the human body were the best in the mind as people explored the ideas of how life from space and Earth would look like. Human genes can express themselves in different ways in microgravity conditions, and scientists have linked such environments to the rapid loss of muscle that they saw in astronauts, and even the possibility of developing skin rashes.
But when examined in itself, we hope that genetic changes in bacteria will give more clues about how researchers act once inside humans, and more clues about whether it is speed or whether it may avoid our treatment.
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