Event: Horizons in Biosciences & Informatics Seminar Series (HBISS)
What: Biofilms, From the Cradle of Life to Life Support
When: Thursday, February 26th, 10am Pacific Time
Where: Microsoft Teams
Who: Katherine Baxter of University of Glasgow, UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association, and OSDR-Microbes AWG; Nicholas Brereton of University College Dublin, ESA RadioBiome & ESA-CSA MARSCROP projects, and OSDR-Microbes AWG
Microsoft Teams meeting
Join: Join conversation
Meeting ID: 263 110 908 670 95
Passcode: 2v5vq6RZ
Dial in by phone
+1 256-715-9946,128394537# United States, Huntsville
Phone conference ID: 128 394 537#
hbiss baxter brereton biofilm 20260226.pdf (1.2 MB)
Event: Horizons in Biosciences & Informatics Seminar Series (HBISS)
What: Biofilms, From the Cradle of Life to Life Support
When: Thursday, February 26th, 10am Pacific Time
Where: Microsoft Teams
Who: Katherine Baxter of University of Glasgow, UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association, and OSDR-Microbes AWG; Nicholas Brereton of University College Dublin, ESA RadioBiome & ESA-CSA MARSCROP projects, and OSDR-Microbes AWG
Summary:
Biofilms are a persistent risk in spaceflight, contributing to fouling in life support systems and infection risk. They also support essential functions in plant and human hosts, including nutrient-cycling, barrier function, immune modulation, and stress tolerance. How spaceflight stressors might disrupt biofilm structure and signalling to compromise these functions, and the implications to space crop and astronaut health, is being explored. A roadmap of priority research areas is suggested, including integrated multiomics to enable predictive monitoring and inform targeted interventions, which can be accelerated through Open Science cooperation across the international space research community.
The presenters led the team of authors in the recent npj biofilms and microbiomes paper: Baxter, K.J., Sas, E., Clark, K.B. et al. Biofilms: from the cradle of life to life support. npj Biofilms Microbiomes 12, 11 (2026). Biofilms: from the cradle of life to life support | npj Biofilms and Microbiomes
Biographies:
@katherine.j.baxter is a Microbiologist at the University of Glasgow where she investigates a variety of plant and human microbial pathogens, with a special interest in biofilms and bacterial-fungal interactions. Katherine is also Coordinator of the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association (UK Space LABS) and Co-lead of the Microbes AWG Biofilms subgroup.
@nicholas.brereton is an Ad Astra fellow and Assistant Professor at University College Dublin, where his lab specialises in using multiomics to understand the biology of cross-kingdom interactions. Nicholas currently leads the ESA RadioBiome project and the ESA-CSA MARSCROP project, developing host-microbiome solutions for health in space.
@AIMLawg @ALSDAawg @AnimalAWG @BrainAWG @FemaleReproAWG @HardwareAWG @HUMANawg @MicrobesAWG @MultiOmicsAWG @PlantAWG @PPawg @RLWG