An interview with Jennifer Wadsworth
Jennifer Wadsworth is a Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA Ames Research Center. In this interview, she tells us more about her research working with microbial contaminant species found in spacecraft assembly, and why she thinks understanding life on other planets is important to microbiology.
Tell us more about your research.
My current research at NASA Ames Research Center, California, is focused on planetary protection. This encompasses efforts to prevent contamination from Earth to other planetary bodies that we send spacecraft to (forward contamination) and also contamination from those destinations back to Earth (back contamination). By contamination we typically mean hardy life-forms, many of which are bacterial, or organic material that could be mistaken for a biosignature. NASA and other national space agencies have protocols in place during the assembly of spacecraft to lower the risk of contamination, but these are imperfect and outdated. My job is to come up with additional sterilisation/cleaning strategies to minimise the risk of contamination, whilst not compromising potentially sensitive equipment.
Why is this research important?
I’m working with microbial contaminant species that have been found in spacecraft-assembly clean rooms across the globe. Clean room conditions are an example of an enclosed, humanmade extreme environment that microbes have come to inhabit. Although faced with factors such as lack of nutrients, as well as harsh chemical and physical cleaning regimes, some species continue to resist and adapt to this environment. Not only is this a major challenge for spacecraft with sensitive life-detection equipment, but also other human-made, enclosed clean room environments such as ICUs and operation theatres. Being able to understand how these microbes survive in these environments and how intense sterilisation efforts put substantial selection pressure on resistance mutations can help us adjust our approach to cleaning/sterilisation efforts. This is not only important when trying to detect life on other planets, but also back on Earth in our healthcare sector, especially when facing a growing crisis of multiple-resistant pathogens.
Why does microbiology matter?
As exemplified in the previous section, microbes dominate all aspects of life and all sectors of research, from science targeting the outer reaches of our solar system to disease prevention back on Earth. Studying and understanding microbes not only gives us a fascinating insight into the evolution of life on Earth and potential for life elsewhere, but also crucial knowledge on how we can influence our inescapable coexistence with these amazing lifeforms.
