Summary
The world’s major space agencies share a goal of sending humans to Mars within the next few decades. A sustainable human presence there, akin to today’s presence in Antarctica, could generate paradigm-shifting knowledge at an unprecedented pace. One major challenge lies in providing the food, oxygen and other necessary consumables: these cannot be shipped from the Earth over the long term. They should instead be produced on site and for this, Nostocaceae cyanobacteria can be instrumental: fed with materials available in the Martian ground and atmosphere, they could provide feedstock for a range of bioprocesses which, in turn, could produce a wide range of consumables. However, fundamental knowledge is lacking to turn this concept into practical solutions: the physiology of cyanobacteria in the foreseen cultivation conditions is poorly understood. These conditions combine low total pressures, low partial pressures of dinitrogen, interactions with a basaltic substrate from which nutrients are leached, and high concentrations of chaotropic salts.
In the proposed project, I will enable a deep understanding of cyanobacterial physiology in these conditions. For this I will employ a unique approach combining cultivation assays in unique hardware previously developed by my team, adaptive laboratory evolution, cutting-edge omics technologies, the development of a mathematical model which can predict the productivity and efficiency of cyanobacterium cultivation from Martian resources, and the construction of a testbed for the experimental validation of this model. I will use the generated knowledge and tools to design, characterize and demonstrate the viability of bioprocesses which dramatically improve the odds that Mars exploration is done in a sustainable way. Finally, I will adapt the concepts developed for bioproduction on Mars to open new avenues for sustainability on Earth, which I plan to follow up by applying for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.
In the proposed project, I will enable a deep understanding of cyanobacterial physiology in these conditions. For this I will employ a unique approach combining cultivation assays in unique hardware previously developed by my team, adaptive laboratory evolution, cutting-edge omics technologies, the development of a mathematical model which can predict the productivity and efficiency of cyanobacterium cultivation from Martian resources, and the construction of a testbed for the experimental validation of this model. I will use the generated knowledge and tools to design, characterize and demonstrate the viability of bioprocesses which dramatically improve the odds that Mars exploration is done in a sustainable way. Finally, I will adapt the concepts developed for bioproduction on Mars to open new avenues for sustainability on Earth, which I plan to follow up by applying for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101165485 |
| Start date: | 01-02-2025 |
| End date: | 31-01-2030 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 1 563 750,00 Euro - 1 563 750,00 Euro |
Cordis data
Original description
The world’s major space agencies share a goal of sending humans to Mars within the next few decades. A sustainable human presence there, akin to today’s presence in Antarctica, could generate paradigm-shifting knowledge at an unprecedented pace. One major challenge lies in providing the food, oxygen and other necessary consumables: these cannot be shipped from the Earth over the long term. They should instead be produced on site and for this, Nostocaceae cyanobacteria can be instrumental: fed with materials available in the Martian ground and atmosphere, they could provide feedstock for a range of bioprocesses which, in turn, could produce a wide range of consumables. However, fundamental knowledge is lacking to turn this concept into practical solutions: the physiology of cyanobacteria in the foreseen cultivation conditions is poorly understood. These conditions combine low total pressures, low partial pressures of dinitrogen, interactions with a basaltic substrate from which nutrients are leached, and high concentrations of chaotropic salts.In the proposed project, I will enable a deep understanding of cyanobacterial physiology in these conditions. For this I will employ a unique approach combining cultivation assays in unique hardware previously developed by my team, adaptive laboratory evolution, cutting-edge omics technologies, the development of a mathematical model which can predict the productivity and efficiency of cyanobacterium cultivation from Martian resources, and the construction of a testbed for the experimental validation of this model. I will use the generated knowledge and tools to design, characterize and demonstrate the viability of bioprocesses which dramatically improve the odds that Mars exploration is done in a sustainable way. Finally, I will adapt the concepts developed for bioproduction on Mars to open new avenues for sustainability on Earth, which I plan to follow up by applying for an ERC Proof of Concept Grant.
Status
SIGNEDCall topic
ERC-2024-STGUpdate Date
24-11-2024
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