The hidden microbial communities that shape health in space

Microorganisms live in biofilms - the equivalent of microbial “cities”- everywhere on Earth. These city-like structures protect and house microbial communities and play essential roles in enabling human and plant health on our planet. Now, a new Perspective article published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes sets out a path to uncover the role of biofilms in health during long-duration spaceflight, and how spaceflight research can reshape our understanding of these microbial communities on Earth.

Led by researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Maynooth University and University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland working within the GeneLab Microbes Analysis Working Group around the NASA Open Science Data Repository, the new study Biofilms: from the cradle of life to life support – 22nd Jan 2026 explores biofilms as a major frontier for both human and crop health in space and on Earth.

Biofilms are organised microbial communities structured within a matrix of microbial polymers that defines how microbes interact with hosts. On Earth, these host-biofilm interactions underlie essential functions across human and plant tissues, including nutrient uptake and use, stress tolerance and pathogen control. In space, evidence suggests these ancient interactions can be compromised, and require coordinated, mechanistic study. 

“Biofilms are often considered from an infection viewpoint and treated as a problem to eliminate, but in reality they are the prevailing microbial lifestyle that supports healthy biological systems,” said Dr Katherine J. Baxter from the University of Glasgow, first-author and Co-ordinator of the UK Space Life and Biomedical Sciences Association (UK Space LABS). “Spaceflight offers a distinctive and invaluable testbed for biofilm organisation and function, and, importantly, evidence so far makes it clear that biofilms need to be better understood, managed, and likely engineered to safeguard health during spaceflight.”

Spaceflight and even spaceflight simulations on earth can alter biofilm architecture, gene regulation, signalling, and stress tolerance, with effects varying across microbial species and experimental platforms. The team outlines a roadmap for applying advanced genetics and biochemical approaches, or “multiomics”, that can uncover biofilm structure and functions across interkingdom multispecies microbial communities interacting within high complexity biological systems.

“Plants will sit at the centre of long-duration spaceflight missions, and plant performance depends on biofilm interactions in and around plant root systems,” said Dr Eszter Sas, co-author and metabolomics specialist at Maynooth University. “By combining multispecies genetics and biochemistry, modern multiomics has the exciting capability to reveal new biofilm mechanisms from spaceflight responses, and is starting to fill in major gaps in our understanding of signalling and metabolism at the interface of biofilms and plant roots.”

The research was coordinated through the ecosystem of open access data, tools, platforms, and Analysis Working Groups around the NASA Open Science Data Repository, which was an expansion of NASA GeneLab. Experimentation in space is incredibly challenging and costly, so ‘Open Science’ approaches and communities are needed for shared standards, methodology and transparent analysis to ensure what is learnt from each spaceflight mission is maximised and so that discoveries are translated to applications on Earth.

“This work reflects collaboration spanning the globe, with a strong Open Science community for shared thinking and shared discovery,” said Prof Nicholas J. B. Brereton, senior author at University College Dublin. “The translation of value runs both ways, spaceflight can reveal new biology under unfamiliar stress, and those insights can tell us a lot about how life might survive in space but also inform approaches for health and agriculture on Earth.”

The research includes a call for action on coordinated open biofilm research that moves beyond narrow model systems to support analogue and cross-mission experimentation that accelerates the path from observation to useful intervention.

Read the Perspective article in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41522-025-00875-8. DOI: 10.1038/s41522-025-00875-8.