Space-travelling yeast and algae back at UBC for DNA analysis

A team of scientists at the University of British Columbia recently sent baker’s yeast and algae to space in hopes of studying the effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation on living organisms.

The samples could provide insight into ways to protect future space travellers – and even cancer patients undergoing radiation-based treatments – from the DNA-damaging rays, according to Dr. Corey Nislow, a pharmaceuticals science professor at the university.

In August, ahead of the launch of NASA's Artemis 1 lunar mission, which carried the samples for 42 days, Nislow explained the experiment in an interview with UBC's communications department.

He said the expectation was that spending time in space would change the DNA of the yeast and algae, which were expected to grow for seven generations during the mission.

"We aim to find out if the yeasts’ genome-wide signature in response to cosmic radiation resembles that seen by cells exposed to DNA-damaging cancer drugs," Nislow said at the time.

"Our preliminary data suggests that the answer is yes. In this way, the Artemis mission will provide us with important directions for how to develop countermeasures for combating radiation damage to both yeast and crew member DNA, as well as ways to minimize the side effects of different chemotherapies."

This week, Nislow told CTV News he wasn’t sure the experiment would be successful.

When it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere on Dec. 11, the craft containing the vials of algae and yeast endured temperatures of up to 2,700 C before plummeting into the ocean.

"You kind of have to pinch yourself and say, ‘Oh, this is what we've been waiting for and it worked,’" he said. “I never thought we'd have an experiment leave Earth and the way it happened was just complete serendipity."

Both projects – Deep Space Radiation Genomics and Moonshot-Algae – were a decade in the making, with NASA selecting the UBC lab to be part of the Artemis mission.

Now that the samples are back in Vancouver, the real work begins.

"This little pellet of yeast, this will keep us working for years. It'll keep my students working for years decoding what happened to their genomes," Nislow said.