Tuesday, October 19
4:00 – 5:00 p.m.(AST)
Building 2 – Level 5 – Room 5209
On Zoom
Surviving Space Radiation: Lessons from Microorganisms
By Dr. Ivan Paulino-Lima, Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS)
Abstract
One of the biggest problems of interplanetary human missions and space settlements is the exposure of biological systems to high levels of cosmic radiation. Solving this problem will not only enable humans to reach Mars safely but will unleash the path for planetary colonization in centuries to come. On Earth, some organisms are able to proliferate normally under doses of radiation orders of magnitude higher than the lethal doses for humans. Many of them have actually been exposed to real space conditions on Low Earth Orbit (LEO), and survived. Scientists are constantly learning how they do that and are now starting to envision ways to transfer this capability to future astronauts and also many other applications here on Earth. In this presentation, Dr. Paulino-Lima will give a general overview of the molecular mechanisms of radiation resistance and protection used by microorganisms and point to future directions in both fundamental and applied research.
About the speaker
Dr. Paulino-Lima is a senior research investigator with Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS), working at Dr. Lynn Rothschild’s Synthetic Biology lab at NASA Ames Research Center. After completing his postdoctoral research at NASA, he took on a role to support the science team on the EuCROPIS satellite mission as a Co-Investigator (Co-I) of the PowerCell payload. Now he is the Principal Investigator (PI) on a cooperative agreement between Blue Marble Space and NASA to develop a research project called Astropharmacy, which is funded by the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program. Dr. Lynn Rothschild is the NASA PI on Astropharmacy and they seek to deliver a microfluidics-based Astropharmacy production system on a mission context. Dr. Paulino-Lima is a biologist with a Ph.D. degree in Biophysics from the University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and a Master’s degree in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the State University of Londrina, Brazil. He is also an amateur astronomer, a member of the Peninsula Astronomical Society (PAS), and the President of “Grupo Regional de Astronomia de Marília (GRAMA)”, in Brazil.
