With the continuous improvement of human science and technology, the exploration of space is increasingly in-depth, live on Mars, the establishment of our second home is just around the corner. MBCS is an organization dedicated to assisting in the early stages of human exploration on Mars. We want to build simple miniature biospheres on Mars to solve the logistical problem of settling on Mars. At the same time, MBCS also hopes to provide an idea of microbial cycle production, which will contribute to the field of alien star exploration and synthetic biology in the future.
This year, we received nearly 600 responses and received advice and support from more than 20 experts. We hope that MBCS will continue to grow and develop more uses in the face of different opinions.
We followed the PDCA loop used by the 2021ShanghaiTech_China team and used it mainly for iterations of our project.
| P( Plan ): Identify the problems to be solved at this stage and formulate corresponding solutions, such as interviews, experiments and other means. Specify '5W1H' : Why, What, Where, Who(or When), How.
| D( Do ): Execute according to the plan developed in phase P, such as perform 'interview', 'experiment' or 'design'. In phase D, work needs to be ensured that it is effectively implemented on schedule.
| C( Check ): Verify that the implementation has been completed according to the plan in phase P and that the implementation is up to standard. If the expected results are not achieved, new problems need to be resolved. In stage C, the tasks that have reached the standard and those that have not reached the standard need to be calculated reasonably.
| A( Act ): A needs to summarize the problems listed in phase C and deal with the remaining problems. Phase A may also be phase P and D of the next cycle, where problems need to be identified, plans made, and implementation
The A phase of the PDCA may be the P and D phases of the next cycle. The PDCA cycles are connected, and each time the team solves a portion of the effort. In this cycle, the C and A phases are used to carry out the verification and summary of the cycle, so this needs to be completed by the team. We complete phases C and A of each cycle in weekly group meetings. At the end of the first loop, a new problem and a second loop are immediately followed, and so on.
We have experienced many PDCA cycles in the development process, and finally decided the direction of our efforts: MBCS. Of course, our cycle will not stop here, we still need several PDCA cycles to improve the project and explore the possibility of the project.
In terms of informed consent, we established an informed consent commitment before all interviews and questionnaire collection; The content of all interviews and emails will be released with consent. For questionnaires, we do our best to avoid all ethical issues associated with survey data. We will do our best to protect the privacy of the interviewees.
Affected by the epidemic, we conducted a few face-to-face interviews, and the main recommendations were obtained through emails and phone calls.
To clarify the purpose of our search for interviewees, we designed a brief introduction for all interviewees before the formal communication, so that they could have a basic understanding of our project. Before the interview, we will also conduct some desk research to ensure that we can get the suggestions we need.
Our project went through a long process of title determination. We held weekly brainstorming sessions to explore the possibilities of synthetic biology and share our ideas and preliminary designs. But identifying the problem is not a simple process. This year, we focused on the feasibility of the project due to the drastic reduction of the experimental time due to the pandemic. But more importantly, if the problem is not really necessary, further design will lead to a waste of time and energy. We spent too much effort on the design in the first place, and we realized this during our first check of the PDCA loop. So we started talking about, what is the problem that we want to solve? Is it necessary?
In the process of project design, our team members divided into several teams to design the project in various possible directions, and reported the relevant results weekly. In the process of proposing the scheme, we tried to find some problems existing in the production and life of human beings, and further think about the solutions that synthetic biology can provide for these problems. We screened our ideas and made designs by consulting the literature in related fields and according to the existing research.
Inspired by the epidemic, we proposed the use of bacterial cellulose membrane as fruit packaging to slow fruit spoilage, and the mass production of Aptamer in E. coli based on phage function, hoping to provide a more convenient detection. One of the projects we proposed was the establishment of a stray cat vaccine for caring animals as a basis for herd immunity. However, these projects were abandoned in the iterations of link D and C because we thought it was not a real dilemma,or it was too difficult to establish a efficient solution.
Eventually, inspired by the movie The Martian, one of our team members asked, could you build a miniature artificial biosphere on Mars to support production needs? After talking to professors at the academy, we finally set our sights on the not-too-distant future, on Mars. When humans land on Mars, can we use synthetic biology to support the survival and life of more people? MBCS was born!
When we want to live on Mars, bacteria may provide a better way to produce food. By building symbiotic systems involving both producers and consumers, we can complete the self-sustaining cycle of our food manufacturing base -- MBCS.
One of our team members, a science fiction fan inspired by the movie The Martian, suggested that instead of looking at Earth, why not consider living on alien planets?
So we looked to space, and based on our exploration of the planets in the solar system in recent years, we know that Mars is our most likely second home.
We began to conceive of what we would need by then. Energy is essential for human survival, and food supply is clearly the number one need for human exploration of Mars. Through reference, we know that living in space, astronauts need to consume about 2.5kg of food every day. Obviously, the food that can be carried by the aircraft at one time is limited, and the continuous production of food is very important to live on Mars for a long time.
Our team said, why not grow crops on Mars to replenish food, like in The Martian? We know from looking at relevant data that growing plants directly on the surface of Mars can make the food obtained toxic. So initially we wanted to create a non-toxic culture environment, using synthetic biology, where bacteria form a harmless "soil" to grow harmless crops. We discussed this idea at the group meeting, and someone suggested that bacteria are a factory in themselves, why not use bacteria directly to produce nutrients to provide food?
Mars is a barren planet, which means our microbes will face survival challenges in the first place. When designing the project, we made it clear from the very beginning that we needed to build symbiosis. Inspired by both the Martian rescue and the origin of life on Earth, we first thought of S. elongatus. When considering a S. elongatusl collaborator, we paired it with a nitrogen-fixing E. coli by analogy with crop growth. We thought that E. coli has a lot of mature genetically engineered components, and working with an E. coli that is itself nitrogen-fixing would make our experiments much easier to verify.
We shared this idea with our advisor Wei Shen in the regular group meeting, and he suggested that the nitrogen fixing efficiency of E. coli is low and may not be able to meet our needs. We also interviewed Professor Chunping Huang, who conducted ecological research. She suggested that we consider combining photosynthetic bacteria and A. caulinodans to ensure the energy supply of engineered bacteria.
We established the ternary symbiosis system of S. elongatus, A. caulinodans and E.coli, hoping to establish our micro-biosphere on Mars through carbon fixation by S. elongatus, nitrogen fixation by A. caulinodans and nutrient production by E.coli. We shared our ideas with Dr. Chen Dong, a participant of the Chinese Lunar Palace-1 experiment. He introduced the problems that should be paid attention to when building an artificial biosphere based on green plants and shared the relevant experience of the experiment, which provided us with valuable reference materials for building MBCS.
After we decided to build a miniature artificial biosphere for Mars, our group turned to thinking about how to reinforce our symbiotic system. Through the modification and construction of gene and metabolic pathways, we hope to realize the effective flow and regulation of nutrients among the three microorganisms to stabilize this symbiotic relationship for a long time. And we hope that the hardware can play a protective role for microorganisms and at the same time assist the efficient and sustainable production of microbial symbiosis system.
Therefore, based on these questions, we plan to interview experts in the next step to get their suggestions or ideas. We have listed a set of question topics that mainly include the following:
For detailed information about the interview, please refer to Assistance and Investigation. We will attach all the interview drafts with exhibition permission.
Human needs on Mars
Objective: To find out how much nutrients we need to produce to meet the needs of human life, we interviewed Dr. Chen Dong, a participant in Chinese Lunar Palace-1 experiment.
Response: Through Dr. Dong Chen's further reply, we understand the basic needs of human survival on Mars, and further confirm the necessity of food supply on Mars. At the same time, we made corresponding designs in the hardware to reduce the influence of radiation and Mars temperature on our microbial chassis.
Building artificial ecosystems based on Martian conditions
Objective: In order to further understand the environmental challenges MBCS may face on Mars and the direction of existing space design, we interviewed Dr. Yong Mao, the founder of ITCCC, an expert of the Global Conference of Future Astronauts, and Dr. Huaixing Cang of the China Key Space Laboratory.
Response: Taking into account the suggestions of Dr. Yong Mao and Dr. Huaixing Cang , we further improved the project design, pinpointed the scene to "a Mars base where people can stay", and prepared food for people's long-term stay. We decided to focus on the improvement of the symbiotic system, hoping to improve the robustness of MBCS through the information communication between the components of the symbiotic system.
Objective: We will exchange the design of symbiotic system with Professor Shen Wei, one of the consultants, and hope to get more suggestions.
Response: Based on the exchange of bacterial nutrients in the symbiotic system, we introduced a negative feedback regulation system to stabilize the nutrient flow in the system. We designed a quorum sensing system to complete the intercellular communication of symbiotic system components to improve the flexibility and robustness of MBCS.
See the Modeling interface for details.
Objective: Because of the different working conditions of A. caulinodans and S. elongatus, two key nutrient supply side microorganisms in the symbiotic system, simple mixed fermentation culture is not suitable for MBCS. We designed a modular fermentation model for MBCS in separate tanks, and to determine if this model is really feasible, we obtained a proposal from Synthetic Biology company Blue Crystal Microbes.
Response: Bluepha's advice allowed us to confirm the hardware direction of MBCS. Firstly, we confirmed the partial feasibility of tank fermentation, and then in the process of consulting the fermentation mode given by Bluepha, we found that immobilized fermentation can be well combined with our hardware. Therefore, we designed a new modular fermentation mode of "separate tank and fixed". In the pot-fixed fermentation, we use photocontrolled protein magnets for photocontrolled reversible fixation of microorganisms, which further improves the practicability of MBCS and reduces the risk of bacterial leakage.
After continuous iteration, our goal has always been to make the concept of MBCS more practical over time. In order to achieve this goal, we want to know the opinions of experts engaged in microbial food production research on our MBCS nutrient production program. Therefore, we interviewed Dr. Jia Chen, a visiting professor of the Food Processing Research Institute of Guizhou Academy of Agricultural Sciences.
In addition, we also interviewed the senior engineer of MENGNIU Dairy, from whom we got further suggestions.
Since we do not have the right to use XiDong Chen's portrait, we will replace his portrait with stick figure.
According to Dr. Jia Chen's suggestion, we have preliminarily established our final product form: nutrient cans. Fortunately, at this stage, our partner BUCT-China told us that our chassis for nutrient production is exactly the same as theirs, and we can finally produce a food with better taste than nutrient cans: cell meat. See partnership page for details.
Some of the questionnaire results
We ShanghaiTech_China and BUCT-China collaborated to design and complete the questionnaire.
ShanghaiTech_China has analyzed the data from the survey.
Through this questionnaire, we hope to understand the public's opinions on food safety in terms of food production by microbial circulation production system and artificial meat production, and to improve the project based on the suggestions of our product users.
We received 88 responses from people of different ages and educational backgrounds.
ShanghaiTech_China would like to learn about the public acceptance of artificial meat as a possible food for a Mars base and suggestions on the idea of combining a micro-biological fermentation cycle production system with cellular meat.
Through the survey, we learned that more than half of the respondents believe that there is a high probability that humans will migrate to Mars in the future, and that food production is a very urgent need. Most of the respondents also said that food production through microorganisms is an acceptable way of food production. This has led ShanghaiTech_China to further refine their project concept, making it clear that producing food on Mars via a micro-biological recycling production system is a necessary, achievable and acceptable idea.
at the same time, nearly 90% of respondents agreed that the combination of microbiosphere and cellular meat was a good way to increase the diversity and nutrition of food in the early days of migration.
Thanks to these interviewees, we received many positive comments about the idea and some suggestions for improvements.
For more information on the questionnaire, please see the The questionnaire with BUCT-China.
Objective: The cooperation with BUCT-China made us realize that MBCS has the potential to surpass food manufacturing. We invited Dr. Yue Zou, a future design expert, to discuss his views on the application of MBCS.
Response: According to Dr. Zou Yue's suggestion, we have rethought the application scenario of the design. MBCS can be used as a food production platform, but it can also be used as a small production site on Mars for more than food production. For example, it will provide essential medicines for the initial explorers and produce building materials for the development of a Mars base.
In addition, considering that our project is a new scenario, we hope to understand the possible biosafety impact of MBCS and take corresponding measures to minimize the impact. Furthermore, we have reached a cooperation with SJTU-BioX-Shanghai, hoping to understand the current situation of biological safety in space in the eyes of the public, and make some design improvements and popular science education for it.
Through questionnaires and interviews with experts, we learned about the hidden troubles and some corresponding solutions in the microbial culture under different star scenarios.
Questionnaire results
ShanghaiTech_China and SJTU-BioX-Shanghai jointly designed and completed this questionnaire.
Data from the survey was collected and analyzed by ShanghaiTech_China.
Conclusions of the questionnaire:
We received a total of 485 responses. By analyzing the composition of the respondents, we found that about 70% of them had a bachelor's degree and 10% had a bachelor's degree or above. 50% of the respondents are concentrated in 15-20 years old, 2% are under 15 years old, and the rest are evenly dispersed in 20-40 years old and over 40 years old. Therefore, we judged that the received response data could better represent the cognition of the highly educated people on biosecurity issues, which meant that their suggestions had strong reference value for our project. Through their suggestions at the end of the questionnaire, we iterated on the project description and design. We separately analyzed the answers of senior high school students and found that they have their own understanding of biosafety knowledge, but lack of understanding of space-related microbial knowledge. We will explain relevant knowledge in the future special science popularization in space for senior high school students.
For more information on the questionnaire, please see the The questionnaire with SJTU-BioX-Shanghai.
In the process of advancing the project, we encountered many problems and obstacles, so we turned to many people for help and advice. Thank to those who have helped us, and those who have supported our project, opened up our minds and put forward more ideas.
We mentioned some of the people's contributions in the previous text, and here we want to show more people who have helped MBCS.
The interview PDFs are arranged in alphabetical order.
| Name | Link |
|---|---|
| Bluepha | pdf link |
| Chen Dong | pdf link |
| Chunping Huang | pdf link |
| Guang Yang | pdf link |
| Henglin Cui | pdf link |
| Huaixing Cang | pdf link |
| Jia Chen | pdf link |
| Meetup | pdf link |
| Wenjing Sun | pdf link |
| Xianghui Qi | pdf link |
| Xidong Chen | pdf link |
| Yong Mao | pdf link |
| Yue Zou | pdf link |
It is worth mentioning that we refer to the research model and stakeholder table proposed by 2020 Toulouse_INSA-UPS in Human Practice, and believe that we can do better.
We have established the following table for potential stakeholders of MBCS, hoping to guarantee their information disclosure and interests.
The stakeholders of our project cover the participants in this research direction: iGEM team, relevant laboratories for artificial biosphere exploration; Possible users of MBCS products: people who may settle on Mars and early exploration participants; Regulatory agencies: space agencies and food regulatory agencies.We hope to reach more people, especially those who work in related fields, and plant a seed of exploration in their minds.
| Stakeholders | Information disclosure | Benefit insurance |
|---|---|---|
| iGEM team | Design transparency: All of our design details, including ideas and development, and feedback from experiments, are detailed on our wiki. All information about our project is freely available, accessible and documented by all. | References and citations: We allow any research team to take over our project or use it as the basis for their own. |
| Food companies | ||
| National space agency | Compliance: All our food production will comply with the regulations set by each country, and the microbial production will also strictly comply with the relevant regulations of each country. These regulations cover production equipment, food safety and population health. | |
| Food regulatory agency | ||
| The public | Survey and feedback: We investigated people's suggestions on our project through questionnaires and iterated products according to their feedback. |
During the process of the project, we had the honor to communicate with stakeholders from different backgrounds and fields, including many experts, who helped us develop our ideas for the current project.
We are also very concerned about biosafety. The establishment of a new artificial biosphere is, in a sense, a change to a certain environment. At the same time, we have also modified the genes of S. elongatus, E.coli and A. caulinodans, which need to follow the life safety rules to make our projects develop effectively and stably within the safety range.
·The clear requirements found in the survey guide our design thinking direction, and we confirm a really necessary problem.
·According to Professor Wei Shen's suggestion, we designed a Quorum Sensing pathway model based on carbon/nitrogen source starvation promoters.
·On the basis of the initial S. elongatus-E.coli bisymbiosis system, Wei Shen made suggestions and encouraged us to introduce a new microorganism to increase the complexity and stability of the system.
·According to Professor Wei Shen's suggestion, we applied sodium alginate immobilized to visually verify and present many regulatory pathways in the symbiotic system.
·In the laboratory, we mainly used E.coli chassis for relevant promoter optimization and upstream and downstream characterization of quorum sensing pathways. In the iterative process, we combined with the suggestion of Dr. Yong Mao, took the robustness of gene pathways as an important criterion in the iterative process, and carried out a large number of parallel experiments and referred to the data provided by the modeling group and the literature. In this way, our quorum-sensing system will be able to remain stable in the face of internal biochemical parameters and perturbations from the external environment.
·Inspired by Dr. Dong Chen, we considered the uneven illumination distribution in the Microbial Population Growth-Special Growth Curve for S. Elongatus. The effects of elongatus on the growth of S. elongatus were verified by modeling, and the results of which are consistent with those of Wetlab. Therefore, we propose an iterative scheme: to increase the transmittance of the fermenter to light, not only the transmittance of the tank wall can be increased, but also the transmittance of the interior can be increased by adding small optical fibers into the fixed bed (gel beads).
·The robustness mentioned by Dr. Yong Mao provides a reference for our Quorum Sensing pathway model. Our modeling team members iterated the parameters of the quorum sensing model to obtain the most appropriate parameter range.
·In addition, when calculating the reasonable Ratio of Three kinds of Bacteria, we also considered the robustness: after calculating the limit Ratio of Three kinds of Bacteria by linear programming method, we increased the proportion of cyanobacteria and azotobacter slightly to ensure the robustness of nutrient supply to E. coli.
·The questionnaire survey designed in cooperation with SJTU-BioX-Shanghai made us realize the necessity of popularizing biosafety knowledge. We take this into consideration in the design of popular science lectures of Education, and spread relevant knowledge in the popular science of space special session.
·In the process of Education, we asked more stakeholders and got many suggestions and positive answers about our project. The process of Education and Communication also gives us the opportunity to find more experts to further investigate, interview and solve the problems we are facing.
·Professor Chen Dong reminded us to pay attention to the temperature environment to ensure the survival of bacteria. Based on this suggestion, we designed a temperature-controlled plate on the hardware to provide environmental guarantee for our symbiotic system.
·Bluepha's suggestion enabled us to confirm the hardware direction of MBCS. Inspired by the existing fermentation mode proposed by Bluepha, we combined immobilized fermentation with our original separate tank design to build a new type of fixed separate tank fermentation hardware. On the one hand, immobilization makes MBCS more practical. On the other hand, immobilization effectively adheres to bacteria and reduces the risk of bacterial leakage, which also reflects biosafety considerations.
MBCS hopes that it will not only meet the food supply in the early days of Mars, but also improve our ideas in the future, hoping that it will develop into a supply base for medicine, clothing and building materials.
Our design is unisex, non-racial and for all of humanity. Our project solves the three-body problem, which can be applied to space exploration, new energy, and realize great value in the whole human exploration. We will arouse more people's enthusiasm for space exploration. We hope to plant an ideal seed and make contributions to the space exploration and survival of all mankind.