BioS-ENDURES Inaugural Annual Symposium

Thursday, September 10

Business Meeting – Consortium Members Only
1 – 5 p.m.

Lunch on your own prior to arrival.

• Consortium business topics
• Funding and reporting guidelines
• Research collaboration building

Reception | 5 – 6:30 p.m. (In-person only)

Appetizers included. Cash bar.

• Networking  –  Engage directly with presenters and peers.

Friday, September 11

Breakfast and lunch are included. Dinner on your own.

8:30 a.m. Light breakfast

Meeting – Open to the public | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.
All times Pacific Daylight Time.

• Research seed project presentations from across the consortium
• Industry leaders and external guest speakers
• NASA representative remarks

9:00 – 9:15 a.m. Welcome

9:15 – 9:30 a.m. NASA Overview

9:30 – 10:15 a.m. Thrust 1 Presentations: Develop monitoring capabilities to measure underlying molecular status (biomarkers) of humans, animal models, plants and their associated microbial communities.

10:15 – 10:30 a.m. Break

10:30 – 11:30 a.m. Science Keynote:
Dr. Afshin Beheshti, Professor of Surgery, Bioengineering, and Computational and Systems Biology at the University of Pittsburgh

“Life at the Edge: Multi-Omics Insights into How Organisms Sense, Adapt, and Persist Beyond Earth”

Description: Human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit will require defining the fundamental biological mechanisms that allow living systems to sense, adapt to, and thrive within environments for which life on Earth did not evolve. Spaceflight is a systems-level perturbation that includes altered gravity, radiation, isolation, mechanical unloading, and disrupted circadian rhythms, that reshapes biology from the molecular to the organismal level.

11:30 – 12:30 p.m. Thrust 2 & 3 Presentations:

• Build models to predict human, plant, and human-plant-microbe robustness and interactions in space.
• Validate and apply understanding of human and plant health, including promoting beneficial human-plant-microbe interactions, to enhance health in space.

12:30 – 1:30 p.m. Lunch Presentation:
Yinjie Tang, Ph.D., Director of AD ASTRA Consortium

Description: AD ASTRA, which stands for “An Integrative Anaerobic Digestion and Phototrophic Biosystem for Sustainable Space Habitats and Life Supports,” is an awardee of NASA’s Space Biology Program. The AD ASTRA Consortium is led by Dr. Yinjie Tang, Professor of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering at the Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. The team includes eight scientists from six universities across Missouri, Delaware, and Florida. Professor Tang will share about their consortium’s progress.

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. Industry Keynote:
Tara Ruttley, Ph.D., Chief Scientist Blue Origin Orbital Reef

“Post-ISS Space Biology: Perspectives from Blue Origin’s Orbital Reef”

Description: This presentation will share plans for implementing space biology on Orbital Reef, Blue Origin’s commercial space station currently under design to replace the International Space Station. Dr. Ruttley will discuss NASA’s requirements for the laboratory, how those requirements align with the Biological and Physical Sciences Decadal Report, and impacts to space biology researchers.

2:30 – 3:15 p.m. Fireside Chat

“From Laboratory to Analogy Facilities to LEO and Beyond”

A fireside conversation on pathways for taking research from the lab to ground-based simulated spaceflight environments such as analog facilities, to low Earth orbit platforms. Featured speakers will share best practices for building successful industry and government partnerships for near-term and future exploration.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m. Break

3:30 – 4:15 p.m. Funding Panel

4:15 – 4:30 p.m. Closing Remarks

In keeping with NASA’s principles of open science to make publicly funded scientific research transparent, available, and reproducible, these Friday sessions will be available to the public as a live webinar.