Molecular pharming to support human life on the moon, mars, and beyond

McNulty, Matthew J.; Xiong, Yongao; Yates, Kevin; Karuppanan, Kalimuthu; Hilzinger, Jacob M.; Berliner, Aaron J.; Delzio, Jesse; Arkin, Adam P.; Lane, Nancy E.; Nandi, Somen; McDonald, Karen A.

doi:10.1080/07388551.2021.1888070

Cited by 30 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…Developing plants and algae with reduced chloroplast light-harvesting antenna size has the potential to improve whole-organism quantum yield by increasing light penetration deeper into the canopy, which will reduce the fraction of light that is wastefully dissipated as heat and allow higher planting density (Friedland et al, 2019). Developing FPS organisms for pharmaceutical production is especially complicated, given the breadth of production modalities and pharmaceutical need (e.g., the time window of intervention response, and molecule class) (McNulty et al, 2021). Limitedresource pharmaceutical purification is also a critically important consideration that has not been rigorously addressed.…”

Section: Food and Pharmaceutical Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Biological systems also provide robust utility via genetic engineering, which can provide solutions to unforeseen problems and lower inherent risk (Menezes et al, 2015a;Berliner et al, 2019). For example, organisms can be engineered on-site to produce a pharmaceutical to treat an unexpected medical condition when rapid supply from Earth would be infeasible (McNulty et al, 2021). A so-called "biomanufactory" for deep space missions (Menezes, 2018) based on in situ resource utilization and composed of integrated biologically-driven subunits capable of producing food, pharmaceuticals, and biomaterials (Figure 1) will greatly reduce launch and resupply cost, and is therefore critical to the future of humanbased space exploration (Menezes et al, 2015a;Nangle et al, 2020a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Towards a Biomanufactory on Mars

Berliner

Hilzinger

Abel

et al. 2021

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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A crewed mission to and from Mars may include an exciting array of enabling biotechnologies that leverage inherent mass, power, and volume advantages over traditional abiotic approaches. In this perspective, we articulate the scientific and engineering goals and constraints, along with example systems, that guide the design of a surface biomanufactory. Extending past arguments for exploiting stand-alone elements of biology, we argue for an integrated biomanufacturing plant replete with modules for microbial in situ resource utilization, production, and recycling of food, pharmaceuticals, and biomaterials required for sustaining future intrepid astronauts. We also discuss aspirational technology trends in each of these target areas in the context of human and robotic exploration missions.

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Section: Food and Pharmaceutical Synthesismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a Biomanufactory on Mars

Berliner

Hilzinger

Abel

et al. 2021

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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“…Additionally, it has been shown that as the mission duration and complexity increasesas expected for a human mission to Marsthe quantity of supplies required to maintain crew health also increases 31 . In the case of meeting the demand for medication, biopharmaceutical synthesis has been proposed as an alternative to packaging a growing number of different medications 8,32 . Assuming that both technologies can meet mission demand, selection of the production-based biotechnology platform will be dependent on its cost impact.…”

Section: Space Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Pharmaceuticals are produced either chemically or biologically. A recent review of pharmaceutical production for human life support in space compares these two methods, highlighting the need for biological production in order to address many low occurrence and high impact health hazards and further comparing different biological production systems 8 . One major advantage of biological production is the efficiency in transporting and synthesizing genetic information as the set of instructions, or sometimes the product itself, to meet the therapeutic needs for a variety of disease states.…”

Section: Introduction 11 the Need For A Pharmaceutical Foundry In Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating the cost of pharmaceutical purification for a long-duration space exploration medical foundry

McNulty

Berliner

Negulescu

et al. 2021

Preprint

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There are medical treatment vulnerabilities in longer-duration space missions present in the current International Space Station crew health care system with risks, arising from spaceflight-accelerated pharmaceutical degradation and resupply lag times. Bioregenerative life support systems may be a way to close this risk gap by leveraging in situ resource utilization (ISRU) to perform pharmaceutical synthesis and purification. Recent literature has begun to consider biological ISRU using microbes and plants as the basis for pharmaceutical life support technologies. However, there has not yet been a rigorous analysis of the processing and quality systems required to implement biologically-produced pharmaceuticals for human medical treatment. In this work, we use the equivalent system mass (ESM) metric to evaluate pharmaceutical purification processing strategies for longer-duration space exploration missions. Monoclonal antibodies, representing a diverse therapeutic platform capable of treating multiple space-relevant disease states, were selected as the target products for this analysis. We investigate the ESM resource costs (mass, volume, power, cooling, and crew time) of an affinity-based capture step for monoclonal antibody purification as a test case within a manned Mars mission architecture. We compare six technologies (three biotic capture methods and three abiotic capture methods), optimize scheduling to minimize ESM for each technology, and perform scenario analysis to consider a range of input stream compositions and pharmaceutical demand. We also compare the base case ESM to scenarios of alternative mission configuration, equipment models, and technology reusability. Throughout the analyses, we identify key areas for development of pharmaceutical life support technology and improvement of the ESM framework for assessment of bioregenerative life support technologies.

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“…Special attention is given to the disruptive impact of Synthetic Biology on advancing these capabilities (Menezes et al, 2015a;Menezes et al, 2015b). Molecular pharming by use of plants has recently been discussed elsewhere (Mcnulty et al, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choice of Microbial System for In-Situ Resource Utilization on Mars

Averesch

2021

Front. Astron. Space Sci.

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Various microbial systems have been explored for their applicability to in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) on Mars and suitability to leverage Martian resources and convert them into useful chemical products. Considering only fully bio-based solutions, two approaches can be distinguished, which comes down to the form of carbon that is being utilized: (a) the deployment of specialised species that can directly convert inorganic carbon (atmospheric CO2) into a target compound or (b) a two-step process that relies on independent fixation of carbon and the subsequent conversion of biomass and/or complex substrates into a target compound. Due to the great variety of microbial metabolism, especially in conjunction with chemical support-processes, a definite classification is often difficult. This can be expanded to the forms of nitrogen and energy that are available as input for a biomanufacturing platform. To provide a perspective on microbial cell factories that may be suitable for Space Systems Bioengineering, a high-level comparison of different approaches is conducted, specifically regarding advantages that may help to extend an early human foothold on the red planet.

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Molecular pharming to support human life on the moon, mars, and beyond

Cited by 30 publications

References 95 publications

Towards a Biomanufactory on Mars

Towards a Biomanufactory on Mars

Evaluating the cost of pharmaceutical purification for a long-duration space exploration medical foundry

Choice of Microbial System for In-Situ Resource Utilization on Mars

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