Thanks OSDR and all the members for creating all those new opportunities. The fact that this open platform helps us connecting with mind-like researchers will boost exponentiële all space related life science research. Thank you GENELAB, OSDR ans ALSDA. It feels like being in a family
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To the GeneLab, OSDR, and AWG teams: thank you for your work—for your research efforts, your work on data standardization, your patience when receiving metadata, your API and pipelines, your subject matter expertise, and your maintenance of this incredible community.
Your work has changed trajectories. It certainly changed mine.
My first foray into space biology was as a freshman undergrad in Columbia Space Initiative, joining a project to write a proposal for an ISS payload: https://blogs.cuit.columbia.edu/undergraduate-research/from-research-to-researcher-how-collaboration-forms-a-scientific-mind/
As someone with more curiosity than credentials, I looked for a community to advise, instruct, and learn from. I found NASA GeneLab, OSDR, and AWG to be able and willing.
In addition to advice, you also invited me to contribute to research projects. As our project revolved around antibiotic resistance, I joined a team within the Microbe AWG writing a white paper on Microbial Reference Missions & Open Science for the Decadal Survey.
A year and a half later, we had won the ISS payload competition, built a payload, and traveled to NASA Kennedy for the SpaceX-CRS 24 launch. I still remember making edits on white paper from the back seat of a car in Florida on the way to the NASA SPOCS launch. Our graduate student advisor asked me why I’d be working on it so early in the morning and before our exciting launch. It was because I was equally excited to contribute our work to this community.
I later joined the Multi-Omics AWG. During my one-minute introduction, I pitched an idea to examine alternative splicing in astronauts through long-read RNA-sequencing. On that Zoom, Chris Mason messaged me to say his group was planning the first astronaut long‑read datasets and invited me to help analyze them.
That brief interaction and subsequent follow-up emails changed my life. Not only did I get to contribute to and work on the Space Omics and Medical Atlas, but I learned about Nanopore Direct-RNA sequencing, the backbone of basically all my research projects now. Because of GeneLab, I joined Chris’s lab, worked for the past three years on amazing projects across every biological discipline, and decided to pursue my MD-PhD degree at Weill Cornell Medicine.
Most of all, I learned from you - from all the creativity, mentorship, and opportunity in this community - how to be a better scientist and a researcher. I will always be grateful to you.
Yours Sincerely,
Theo
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I’m quite new here, and a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I let go of any dreams of pursuing a career in space research, or even anything remotely related to it. Oh, how wrong I was!
This past week, since joining the AWGs, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to connect with some of the world’s leading scientists. But beyond their brilliance, what’s truly struck me is their openness, how willing they are to answer questions and foster curiosity. It’s allowed me to shed the weight of academic ego and embrace being an apprentice again. What a joy that has been.
True intelligence really does come with humility, and everyone here is living proof of that. Many years ago, my dad submitted my name to be included on the Mars Polar Lander (the one that sadly crashed on the Martian surface). I remember staring at that certificate for hours, imagining what it would be like to one day speak with a NASA scientist. And now, not only have I had the chance to do just that, but I’ve also felt comfortable asking even the most basic questions.
It’s been a privilege and an unforgettable experience.
Felipe – Coventry, UK
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Thank you, Marie. I share the same feeling—being part of this community is truly motivating, and I deeply appreciate all the hard work from GeneLab/OSDR/ALSDA teams
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I am incredibly grateful for the GeneLab community. As an early-career scientist, I can’t imagine a better group to be part of. I am so thankful for all the people involved, you all are great! I like what @katherine.j.baxter said, and I feel the same - I found my tribe. I found the people who share my interests and inspire me to do better every day. I can’t express enough how grateful I am for this community and how positively it has impacted my life. Thank you! 
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Absolutely. Before OSDR and the AWGs, I was dead in the water with my PHD. I had the most amazing mentors at my university, who were leaders in their specialties, who didn’t have labs focused on my research aims. Consequently, I was in the snare of PHD dreams, all of the ambition and ability but no data. OSDR changed everything. Cutting-edge spaceflight data, physiology, and phylogeny, multi-omic, complete bioinformatic pipelines and a bias towards the Darwinian dynamics between microbes and metazoan and multicellular plant hosts. I will forever be in the debt of the NASA OSDR mission, with a blazing interest in evolutionary astrobiology problems.
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Thank you so much for starting this thread, Marie.
As a biostats PhD student, working with the AWG and the GeneLab/OSDR/ALSDA teams has been one of the most rewarding parts of my research journey so far. This community has given me the opportunity to apply my skills in meaningful, real-world ways and contribute to space biology research that pushes the boundaries of what we know and how we care for human health, both in space and here on Earth.
What’s stood out most to me about our community is the openness, generosity, and shared sense of purpose. Whether it’s data sharing, thoughtful discussions, or just encouragement from peers and mentors (including @rtscott2001) this group has helped me grow not only as a scientist, but as a person who believes in the power of collective knowledge.
To everyone behind these efforts: thank you for building something so impactful. Your work inspires me daily.
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GeneLab AWG is truly an amazing place to be. The best thing about our community is that of every single project in AWG being solely driven by the enthusiastic members, collectively working towards a research goal to expand our understanding of space biology. We are genuinely doing noble and amazing work, every AWG has taken an ambitious topic and albeit our constrained times to meet during a week, we still proceed and move forward together as a diverse team from all across the world, that’s just awesome.
I genuinely found a home for me in AWG, it provided me a platform to contribute to my aspiring research field and learn from the experts. The people here are truly awesome and helpful.
I am genuinely glad to be a part of this community and team 
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As a NASA investigator, I deeply appreciate the GeneLab/OSDR/ALSDA team for offering a platform to connect, collaborate, and receive support for analysis. I am truly grateful as a member of the AWG family for their continued dedication and passion for advancing space biology.
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I completely agree with Marie! The GeneLab/OSDR group is hands down the most supportive, collaborative team I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. From meeting everyone at events to working on papers and analyses together, the amount of unbridled passion, and raw excitement I see from everyone about space bio always keeps me dedicated to this community. The OSDR/GeneLab team has literally built my (and so many others’) career, and I cannot thank everyone here enough for that. Let’s keep building on the awesome stuff we’ve done so far and work on humanity’s future in space together!
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Thank you, Marie, for starting this thread!
NASA GeneLab/OSDR feels like a welcoming family for anyone in the space biology field. I’ve been fortunate to meet wonderful collaborators—both online and in person—and it truly feels like a global family driving innovation. From leading projects to contributing to ongoing ones, and from sharing data with bioinformatician colleagues to learning from them, I’ve grown so much through this community. GeneLab has been an incredible platform for collaboration, open data, and discovery.
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This community is the most supportive and intrinsically motivating one I’ve been apart of as a researcher! I feel more fulfilled as a scientist than I think I’ve ever felt in my career, and I have GL/OSDR and the AWGs to thank for it. Everyone in my life is probably tired of hearing me talk about how amazing GL/OSDR and its team are!
I feel the most free I’ve ever felt to conduct rigorous, impactful science in a supportive and energetic community, free of the typical lab/office politics of most academic settings. Everyone is here because they want to be, and it shows.
I’m finally able to connect the threads of my career, bringing together my psychology/neuroscience background, molecular biology/senescence research program, and my software development side. It would’ve been basically impossible for me to find somewhere to let me do the research I was envisioning after leaving my post-doc (especially in the current hiring environment). GL/OSDR gives me all the avenues I need to keep doing impactful research.
Everyone at OSDR/GL/NASA should get a medal (and maybe a vacation). You all are heroes!
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OSDR and the AWGs continue to propel my research forward. While I may never travel to space myself, these opportunities have allowed me to learn, contribute, and engage in projects that will help pave the way for long-term human space exploration. I hope this community does not disappear and I’m forever thankful for you guys entertaining my “crazy” perspectives.
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It is a privilege to learn from everyone in GeneLab/OSDR/ALSDA.
In particular, I would like to thank for the paper “Comprehensive Multi-omics Analysis Reveals Mitochondrial Stress as a Central Biological Hub for Spaceflight Impact” which by chance introduced me to MultiOmics and sparked my interest, and of course @willian.abraham who presented Genelab during a lecture.
Without this paper and these connections, I probably would not have registered, nor discovered Chris Mason’s lab and BioAstra, and I certainly would not have had the opportunity to contribute to the recent publication in @borjabarbero’s project. I am more than grateful for this.
Working with people from such diverse backgrounds has been an incredible learning experience and motivates me to enhance my skills. The more you learn, the more you realize how much remains to be done to make human spaceflight safer.
For me, space has always represented a place where different nations and cultures come together, working for something greater and for the next generations to come. And many projects here can serve as an inspiring example of that spirit.
Endless thanks also to the entire team: for always being available for questions, for the research efforts, for the work on data standardization, and so much more.
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Is a pleasure to see I was useful @marina-stegmann and I am happy to see your increased involviment in the field.
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I would like to express my strong support for the development and promotion of the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR). As a scientist actively involved in collaborative projects within the space biology community, I see OSDR as an exceptional platform that brings real and measurable value to researchers worldwide.
OSDR facilitates access to high-quality, standardized, and interoperable omics datasets collected from spaceflight and analog studies. This openness is critical not only for ensuring transparency and reproducibility but also for accelerating discovery through secondary analyses, data integration, and meta-analytical approaches.
In my own work, OSDR has enabled novel lines of investigation, fostered meaningful collaborations and created opportunities for early-career researchers, including PhD students in my group, to participate in cutting-edge research with global relevance.
More broadly, OSDR exemplifies how open science infrastructures can act as enablers of interdisciplinary progress, linking molecular biology, bioinformatics, medicine, and aerospace research. It stands as a model for how international data sharing can advance both fundamental and translational science.
I’m deeply grateful for the work being done by the OSDR and GeneLab teams, and I strongly believe that support for this initiative is an investment in the future of space life sciences and beyond.
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Hi! The OSDR team should be proud of what they have achieved over the past few years! It takes a great deal of effort to initiate and successfully maintain data on public domain. None of us would be here if not for the NASA Gene Lab and the OSDR platform. I have expressed extended thanks to everyone on the recent interview (https://youtu.be/kLeC1jhm1pc). Be proud of your work, OSDR team!! Its no small feat!
Cheers & Regards
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The GL/OSDR/AWGs have honestly been one of the few reasons I kept going with this crazy idea of adapting my research to space. I’ve made incredible collaborators and tried to contribute where I can. It’s an amazing community that makes you feel welcome, appreciated, and respected, whether you are new to the whole thing or been working on the science since the space shuttles! Moreover, the work they do to help facilitate data access immeasurably speeds up progress on key questions from human health, plants, microbes, and beyond. Thanks for all you do and for making me feel welcome.
@AIMLawg @ALSDAawg @AnimalAWG @PlantAWG @HUMANawg @MicrobesAWG @MultiOmicsAWG @FemaleReproAWG @HUMANawg @HardwareAWG @BrainAWG @RLWG
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I also want to add that I’ve been a part of a lot of open science communities, consortia, and data repository efforts, and this is light years ahead of what I’ve ever seen in terms of organization, impact, rigor of infrastructure, IT, community engagement, etc. It is truly remarkable, and all of you should be a model for every other effort of this type.
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As a Scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Open Science Data Repository (OSDR), NASA GeneLab Analysis Working Group (AWG) Community; I have indeed been impacted in diverse ways. Having a platform to contribute a quota of my scientific knowledge in publication and a wide platform granting avenue to showcase opportunities to others is a way of making my voice to be heard. Open Science in itself is making scientific research and its dissemination accessible to all hence promoting transparency, collaboration, and inclusivity (regardless of background or expertise) in the scientific process. The use of space data made available for application in basic science, applied science, and operational outcomes for space exploration and knowledge discovery is a wide platform for diversification. The information I have access to and professional development events has been sharpening my expertise as well.
It is great to be a member of NASA OSDR GeneLab AWG.
Long Live NASA OSDR GeneLab AWGs. 
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