NASA STAR Program Launches Careers in Space Biology Worldwide

Are you a biologist with dreams of understanding the effects of spaceflight on your model system? Have you been imagining watching a rocket launch, knowing that your own experiment is on its way to orbit? If that is the case, your interests are not uncommon, and your research might benefit from joining the NASA STAR program. The program is organized by Dr. Lisa Carnell from NASA Headquarters together with Dr. Egle Cekanaviciute and Dr. Marianne Sowa from NASA Ames Research Center, and has been held annually since 2020.

STAR, which stands for Spaceflight Technology, Applications and Research, is a virtual, international training program for postdoctoral scholars, senior researchers and principal investigators in academia, industry and government institutions. The applications to STAR open between March and May every year on the NASA NSPIRES website, and the course itself is taught to 25 competitively selected participants between September and February for two hours weekly, which depending on the time zone might fall anywhere between 2 am and 11 pm. To date, the STAR participants have included citizens from 12 countries, ranging in expertise from microbiology to plant biology to engineering to bioinformatics.

The third STAR cohort will be finishing their training at the end of February 2023. They have been learning about the biological responses to microgravity and deep space radiation, as well as vertebrate, invertebrate, plant and microbial model systems used for spaceflight. The training in fundamental space biology has been supplemented by statistics, systems biology and -omics approaches. In addition, STAR emphasizes the practical aspects of designing and flying a payload, by inviting speakers to focus on the engineering and logistics aspects of ISS payloads, small satellites and less well known platforms for studying spaceflight stressors such as scientific balloons and parabolic flights. Representatives from key flight integrator companies define the process of moving the experiments from the bench to a spacecraft, and program officers discuss funding opportunities. At the time of graduation, the participants are ready to propose and successfully complete their first flight experiment.

However, STAR is not over when participants receive their diplomas at the time of graduation. One of the goals of the program is building a robust community of space biologists by encouraging collaborations. Multiple STAR alumni have worked together to submit grant proposals and design educational opportunities both within and outside the US.

A few recently funded NASA Space Biology proposals by STAR alumni as principal investigators include a flight payload of human megakaryocytes to the ISS (Dr. Hansjorg Schwerz, University of Montana, STAR-1), and a study on the impact of radiation on maternal and fetal skeletal physiology (Dr. Heather Allaway, Lousiana State University, STAR-2) as well as a computational genomics investigation on transposons using publicly available NASA data (Dr. Caralina Marin de Evsikova, Bay Pines Foundation, Inc., STAR-2) Some of the STAR alumni have collaborated with NASA investigators on their proposals, while others have joined NASA Centers, including the Marshall Space Flight Center (Dr. Chelsi Cassilly, STAR-1) and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Dr. Siddharth Pandey, STAR-2).

As a part of a major NASA incentive to democratize access to space biology samples and data, the STAR participants have a dedicated session to learning about the Open Science Data Repository administered by NASA Ames Research Center, and are invited to join the Analysis Working Groups, which connect an international community of investigators collaborating on re-analyzing publicly available space ‘omics and other data. Multiple STAR researchers have served on the resulting publications, with other investigations still ongoing.

In addition to the STAR program, NASA has recently begun a complementary training program in space radiation, called SHINE (Space Health Impacts for the NASA Experience), which takes place virtually between February – August, allowing the participants to join both STAR and SHINE courses. A similar studentfocused program has been considered for the future as well.

All interested STAR participants and speakers may check out the program website, read a recent NASA publication about the program, or contact Dr. Egle Cekanaviciute, STAR Course Director, at egle.cekanaviciute@nasa.gov