(Keynote) Integrated Microfluidic Bioanalytical Systems: Growing and Monitoring Microbial Cultures in Outer Space

Abstract

We develop miniaturized bio/analytical instruments and platforms that integrate microfluidics and sensors to conduct economical, frequent, autonomous life-science experiments in outer space. The technologies represented by several of our recent 5-kg “free-flyer” small-satellite missions are the basis of a growing suite of miniaturized biologically- and chemically-oriented instrumentation now enabling a new generation of in-situ space science experiments. Over the past decade, our missions have included studies of space-environment-related changes in gene expression, drug dose response, microbial longevity, the degradation of biomarker molecules, the effects of microgravity on antibiotic resistance, and the "biosentinel" application of microbes to record rates of radiation-induced DNA damage in interplanetary space. The science and technology of several of these missions will be highlighted in the context of conducting biological and chemical experiments in outer space using miniaturized integrated systems.