Humans
are destined to achieve great things, moving along a passage that leads to
greatness but this greatness is not just limited to the world, it actually goes
way beyond this world. Over the past few years the novel gene editing tech CRISPR/CAS has completely
revolutionized the scientific world changing the face of modern research. With
multiple successful experiments all over the world over the past 6 years one
could simply just think of what can be achieved further, last year a science-fiction movie “The Rampage” starring
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson indicated
about CRISPR based gene editing experimentation
in space, putting human mind in to
thinking is it really possible? Well it is for sure… Scientists have recently
successfully conducted first ever gene editing experiment in space, the
experiment was itself was an idea turned in to a reality over a period of two
years. The experiment was completed in two phases:
Phase I:
The
experiment was proposed and designed by a group of high school students (including
David Li, Aarthi Vijayakumar, Deniz Atabay, Guy Bushkin, Michelle Sung, and
Rebecca Li) from the state of Minnesota for the annual Gene in Space Competition 2018, an annual competition focused on enhancement
of biology skills of high school students arranged by an organization consortium
(ISS,NASA, New England Bio-labs, Boing and MiniPCR). The team of students from
the Minnesota guided by the NASA scientists Sarah Wallace and Sarah Stahl. The proposal of editing genes of
micro-organism in space and later on observing changes and repair mechanism of
those genes was greatly praised by the committee and turned out to be the
winner of annual competition. The consortium itself was impressed and decided
to make this a reality.
 |
| From left to right, David Li, Aarthi Vijayakumar, Deniz Atabay, Guy Bushkin, Michelle Sung, and Rebecca Li by a Saturn V rocket during a trip to NASA's Johnson Space Center- Courtesy WhiteHead institute |
Phase II:
After
initial success of the concept, it was decided to execute this experiment and
change it in to a reality. For this all necessary equipments were sent to the International Space Station (ISS)
research Lab. The experiment was conducted by the astronauts Christina Koch and
Nick Hague in ISS Labs. The organism of choice for this experiment was the “Saccharomyces
cerevisiae” the common yeast. The yeast DNA was edited
with CRISPR/CAS9, followed by growing
of the culture and ultimately isolating the fungal DNA and sequencing it for
the identification of whole genome structure and mutations before and after the
experiment.
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| Nick Hague at the ISS, Lab |
The Purpose:
One
would simply wonder what was the exact purpose for this experiment… ??
The
answer is a complex one, this experiment can be identified as an initial phase
of a long research. The edits produced in yeast were to mimic the effect of
those edits or mutations caused by exposure to cosmic radiations. The edits and
DNA repairing mechanism was observed pointing out kind of changes caused by
those radiations and their impact from gene to organism level. The knowledge gathered
could be further used to identify the effect of cosmic radiations absorbed by astronauts
followed by designing of such equipments and suits to minimize the absorption
of such cosmic rays. This could further enable successful exploration missions
on mars and probably beyond.
 |
| Nick Hague Showing edited yeast culture- Courtesy NASA |
Conclusion:
This
entire experiment, its every single stage was carried out in space from editing
to culture growing to the isolation of DNA and later on its sequencing and
analysis. This experiments gives two unique results first opening up all new possibility
of conducting the entire biological experiments in space or even on moon or
Mars in future and second identifying effect of cosmic rays at gene level in
real time which can give further knowledge for developing high-tech and reliable
space suits for astronauts which will make space travelling even more easy and
this all could lead to a possibility of better, more connected and more diverse
inter-space research.
Courtesy: ISS, NASA, MIT review, Gene in space, White Head institute
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