# Microbial Profiling from Apollo to ISS **URL:** \ **Category:** Microbes AWG Open Projects\ **Tags:** data-mining, microbial, lit-review\ **Created:** [September 4, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355 "2025-09-04T03:43:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![anagha.ravi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/anagha.ravi/32/2749_2.png) [@anagha.ravi](https://awg.osdr.space/u/anagha.ravi)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:43am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/1 "2025-09-04T03:43:13Z")
Hello everyone, Our project involves synthesizing microbial data from past spacecrafts, namely the Apollo, ISS, Mir, and Skylab missions. So far, we have a spreadsheet of categorized microbial data taken from previous studies; we also generated some visualizations and have preliminary theories surrounding microbial contamination and health risks during spaceflight. Below we linked both parts of the research we have done together so far. We are open to all ideas on how to advance or improve our project in any way. Please let us know if you are interested! [@MicrobesAWG](https://awg.osdr.space/groups/microbesawg) @ben.sikes @katherine.j.baxter @daniela.bezdan @jaume.puig @S_muntaha2002 @jgalazka ![NASA Scientific Poster-5](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/uploads/osdr/original/2X/9/912978f7b7ea162d3ebab69ac4792d0135c12c05.jpeg) ![Mir and Skylab](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/uploads/osdr/original/2X/3/341f04923f1cf0cf9b3180926fe56a8d8b68beb5.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![rtscott2001](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/rtscott2001/32/5_2.png) [@rtscott2001](https://awg.osdr.space/u/rtscott2001)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:06am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/2 "2025-09-04T04:06:06Z")
Great talk today at the [@MicrobesAWG](https://awg.osdr.space/groups/microbesawg) meeting 💯🎉 @anagha.ravi @Janani_Krishakumar ---
**Author:** ![S\_muntaha2002](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/s_muntaha2002/32/2629_2.png) [@S\_muntaha2002](https://awg.osdr.space/u/S_muntaha2002)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 4:56am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/3 "2025-09-04T04:56:26Z")
Hi @anagha.ravi & @Janani_Krishakumar, I really enjoyed yesterday’s presentations, especially the research on _Microbial Profiling of Spacecraft Environments: MIR to Skylab_. The work was both fascinating and very relevant to my own interests in microbiology and space environments. I would love to get involved with this project or collaborate in any way possible, whether through data analysis, literature review, or contributing to future studies. ---
**Author:** ![Ankita](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/ankita/32/2508_2.png) [@Ankita](https://awg.osdr.space/u/Ankita)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 7:46am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/4 "2025-09-04T07:46:18Z")
Hi @anagha.ravi and @Janani_Krishakumar Great presentation yesterday! I would love to be part of this project in any possible way. ---
**Author:** ![marinafreitas](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/marinafreitas/32/4502_2.png) [@marinafreitas](https://awg.osdr.space/u/marinafreitas)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 9:21am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/5 "2025-09-04T09:21:27Z")
I loved your project presentation yesterday! I would really like to participate and collaborate with the project! 🙌 ---
**Author:** ![nicholas.brereton](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/nicholas.brereton/32/25_2.png) [@nicholas.brereton](https://awg.osdr.space/u/nicholas.brereton)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:00pm UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/6 "2025-09-04T15:00:21Z")
Hi @anagha.ravi - I’m sorry I was late to the meeting and missed your talk (sounds exciting). We did some reanalysis work comparing (just 16S) in the destiny (US lab) and harmony (node 2, with crew quarters/2 sleeping stations) could be useful to feed into some preliminary theories. It’s a technical paper but has the ISS comparison at the end: [https://enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1462-2920.14632](https://enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1462-2920.14632) Good luck with the research! ---
**Author:** ![rtscott2001](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/rtscott2001/32/5_2.png) [@rtscott2001](https://awg.osdr.space/u/rtscott2001)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 3:49pm UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/7 "2025-09-04T15:49:37Z")
This work goes back to Apollo, Mir, Skylab, Shuttle too Nick. As @ben.sikes pointed out, the differing methodology assays (likely microscopy in ~1972), are going to make a full comparative analysis tricky, but likely can still summarize across many many space missions. I know @anagha.ravi & @Janani_Krishakumar are keen to deepen this project with other AWG members. ---
**Author:** ![ben.sikes](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/ben.sikes/32/1045_2.png) [@ben.sikes](https://awg.osdr.space/u/ben.sikes)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/8 "2025-09-04T18:52:55Z")
Also very much appreciated the presentation and your enthusiasm for summarizing microbial changes across places. I’m glad to help as I’m able and I can join a meeting if you set it up. It’s likely important to set explicit boundaries (to start) on where and what you want to compare. Nick linked a good paper. There are several other recent datasets and papers on ISS microbiomes: > **[Characterization of the total and viable bacterial and fungal communities...](https://microbiomejournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40168-019-0666-x)** > > Background The International Space Station (ISS) is a closed system inhabited by microorganisms originating from life support systems, cargo, and crew that are exposed to unique selective pressures such as microgravity. To date, mandatory microbial... > **[More Than a Decade of International Space Station Microbial Sampling in the...](https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20240005682)** > > Microbial monitoring has taken place in major units belonging to the Environmental Control and Life Support Systems (ECLSS) of the International Space Station (ISS). For at least a decade multiple modules including US and RU segments were sampled. In... Are you using the ISS cultures in your poster @anagha.ravi? Do you all want to expand to include amplicon sequencing and metagenomes data too? @anna.simpson led/was involved with much of the recent metagenomics that was done on ISS by JPL. My student and I also visited JSC, where Sarah Castro-Wallace’s group has a ton of (as far as I know) unpublished data on the ISS microbiome. They were doing 16S and ITS sequencing of swabs for a long time (swabs sent back down) but also led the development of Nanopore sequencing on the ISS, which is used now I think. Certainly things we can discuss in the meeting. Depending on your goals, we can try and drag some of these people into the conversation. It’s probably also important to figure out how you can be supported financially or in other ways to actually do the work? ---
**Author:** ![anagha.ravi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/anagha.ravi/32/2749_2.png) [@anagha.ravi](https://awg.osdr.space/u/anagha.ravi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 1:01am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/9 "2025-09-07T01:01:45Z")
Hi Ben, yes the dataset I used for the ISS microbial analysis involved cultures. They are specifically air, water, and surface samples collected onboard the ISS. Samples were cultured either in-flight or after return to Earth, and bacterial isolates were identified using 16S rDNA sequencing and rep-PCR fingerprinting. I linked the specific research paper I used below. Applying metagenomics and amplicon sequencing would be a great way to learn more about this data; we would love to learn more about implementing that approach. Sarah’s research sounds really interesting and would be a great way to reanalyze the microbial profiles of the ISS environments; it would really help update and modernize the trends I noticed when graphing the different microorganisms found aboard the ISS. The data that I used is from the early 2000s, and it would be amazing to use more recent data to get a better picture of the modern ISS microbiome. Janani and I are working to set up a meeting and we would love to hear exciting ways to further our research. Thank you for your guidance! [Microbial Characterization during the Early Habitation of the International Space Station.pdf](https://awg.osdr.space/uploads/short-url/hR6LrWGIdoWnFR2bgKqvb9fe0sn.pdf) (273.3 KB) ---
**Author:** ![anagha.ravi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/anagha.ravi/32/2749_2.png) [@anagha.ravi](https://awg.osdr.space/u/anagha.ravi)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/10 "2025-09-07T01:02:29Z")
I will take a look at this paper. Thank you so much for your support! ---
**Author:** ![Yuanzhe\_AnthonyChen](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/yuanzhe_anthonychen/32/2995_2.png) [@Yuanzhe\_AnthonyChen](https://awg.osdr.space/u/Yuanzhe_AnthonyChen)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2025, 1:02am UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/11 "2025-10-17T01:02:57Z")
Hi Anagha and team, @anagha.ravi @Janani_Krishakumar I’m **Yuanzhe (Anthony) Chen**, a Master’s student in Electrical Engineering at **UNSW Sydney** , focusing on **AI-based modeling and control systems**. I’m very interested in joining your **Microbial Profiling from Apollo to ISS** project — I can help with **data visualization, clustering, or AI-assisted pattern analysis** of the microbial datasets. Please let me know if I can join or contribute to your ongoing work. Best, **Yuanzhe (Anthony) Chen** ---
**Author:** ![fuganti](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex001/user_avatar/awg.osdr.space/fuganti/32/4777_2.png) [@fuganti](https://awg.osdr.space/u/fuganti)\ **Post date:** [October 18, 2026, 5:35pm UTC](https://awg.osdr.space/t/microbial-profiling-from-apollo-to-iss/3355/12 "2026-10-18T17:35:00Z")
Hello @anagha.ravi, @ben.sikes and colleagues, I am Lissandra Kruse Fuganti, an MSc student in Applied Computing at UEPG, Brazil, and a Microbes AWG member. Is the Microbial Profiling from Apollo to ISS project still active and accepting computational contributors? I read the discussion about defining comparison boundaries and extending the culture-based ISS work to newer amplicon/metagenomic datasets. I could start with a small, agreed task: catalog public studies, record mission/sample type and collection/identification methods, check metadata completeness, or produce reproducible visualizations. I would keep culture-based findings separate from sequencing-based profiles rather than assume they are directly comparable. As an example of my recent work, I prepared an AI-assisted, executed Kaggle metadata-audit pilot using a small public MGnify oral-biome sample: > **[Oral Microbiome: MGnify Metadata Audit Pilot](https://www.kaggle.com/code/lissandrakruse/oral-microbiome-mgnify-metadata-audit-pilot)** > > Explore and run AI code with Kaggle Notebooks | Using data from No attached data sources This is a technical example, not an analysis of your project or of spaceflight effects. Could I join, and could you recommend one small initial task, approved public dataset and current workflow? I would also appreciate advice on whether Kaggle is suitable for that task. Written, asynchronous instructions and feedback work best for me because spoken/live English is difficult for me. Thank you, Lissandra Kruse Fuganti UEPG, Brazil