Several years ago, Clay Wang took his children to the California Space Center to show them the space shuttle. But looking at Endeavor and thinking about human exploration of outer space, the pharmacologist also wondered: what if the team ran out of medicines halfway to Mars? A lot of things can go wrong during a three-year mission to Mars. And you can take with you only a limited number of medicines.
“In the case of food, you can accurately predict how much astronauts will need to eat,” Wang says. "You can't do that with medicines."
What to do if there is a need for a medicine that was not put in? The problem is aggravated by the fact that in the space environment many drugs lose their power and break down faster than on Earth.
For these reasons, Wang believes that future Mars explorers should grow their own medicines. In his laboratory at the University of Southern California, he is preparing to conduct an experiment to make this possible.
If all goes according to plan, a few lucky specimens of mushrooms called Aspergillus nidulans will travel on a SpaceX rocket to the International Space Station.
This particular type of fungus is essential for biomedical research. Scientists have studied the genome of A. nidulans far and wide, but unknown parts remain. The functions of many genes are unknown, and Wang's team hopes that cosmic stress will help genes activate and produce new components. If we think of A. nidulans as a factory, “a lot of the machines in this factory have been turned off, so we don't know what they are doing,” Wang explains. "In space, they can turn on."
In most cases, A. nidulans produces only a few classes of compounds, but Wang says his lab found that "they produce different natural products depending on the conditions in which they grow." The team hopes that the unique stressful conditions of space will be able to mushroom creativity and produce ingredients that can be incorporated into medicines. This would help both earthlings and astronauts in space.
Promotional video:
Wang's team also wants to turn A. nidulans or other mushrooms into factories capable of producing a wide variety of drugs in space. But first, they need to see how the high radiation and low gravity conditions will affect the plants. What compounds will they produce, in what quantities? What genes are activated, how are they suppressed?
To find out, mushroom samples will be sent to a space station for several days and then frozen until they return to Earth. Once the space mushrooms return, scientists will compare their metabolites, proteins, and gene expression patterns to those on Earth.
Researchers could then use this information to breed space-resistant strains of the fungus, A. nidulans, or other species, if they can find better ones for the job.
For example, A. nidulans is capable of producing compounds that combat low bone density, a problem that plagues astronauts who spend a lot of time outside of gravity. Usually, the fungus produces this compound in small amounts, but by selectively breeding strains that produce large amounts of this compound, scientists could produce more productive versions.
Wang believes that future explorers of Mars could take a few spores of each strain and grow them as needed, producing drugs in just 2-4 days. Unlike plants, fungi do not need soil or special lighting conditions. All it takes is food waste and some water.
Looking ahead, genetic engineering could help fungi produce all kinds of antibacterial, antifungal, and even anti-cancer drugs on their way to Mars and back. With their help, it would be possible to make any medicine derived from mushrooms.
“The big breakthrough in synthetic biology is the ability to reprogram these organisms,” says Wang. "Not only can we reprogram them, we can manipulate them with ease."
After all, Wang says, astronauts won't even have to take a first aid kit with them. If Mars explorers run out of griseowulfin, ground control will email them the gene sequence used to make the drug, and a DNA synthesizer can write these codes in an artificial cell, which will then produce the drug.
But although scientists can already inscribe DNA into artificial cells, the practical application of this technology is several decades away from us.
ILYA KHEL
