We propose the center for the utilization of biological engineering in space (cubes) to support biomanufacturing for deep space exploration that realizes the inherent mass, power, and volume…

This federal contract award, NNX17AJ31G, was granted to the Regents of the University of California, doing business as the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), to support the Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES) program. CUBES aims to advance the practicality of integrated, multi-function, multi-organism biomanufacturing systems for deep space exploration missions. The $14,703,922.53 grant will fund highly multidisciplinary research culminating in a continuous biomanufacturing demonstration of fuel, materials, pharmaceuticals, and food production using space biotechnology. The award was granted by the Shared Services Center, a civilian federal agency, and is not designated as a set-aside contract. As the parent organization, the State of California Controller's Office would administer any funding provided to UC Berkeley under this grant.

We propose the center for the utilization of biological engineering in space (cubes) to support biomanufacturing for deep space exploration that realizes the inherent mass, power, and volume advantages of space biotechnology over traditional abiotic approaches. Cubes will advance the practicality of an integrated, multi-function, multi-organism biomanufacturing system on a mars mission. Highly multidisciplinary research will culminate in a continuous biomanufacturing demonstration of fuel, materials, pharmaceuticals, and food. Our team can execute this vision because of our deep experience in hybrid bioinorganics for light-driven carbon and nitrogen fixation, enzymology, polymer chemistry, synthetic biology, extremophile engineering, additive manufacturing, aerospace engineering, plant/microbiome food and chemical manufacture, and space crop physiology. Cubes endeavors will include (1) media generation: artificial photosynthesis that turns carbon dioxide into methane and acetate; nitrogenase-catalyzed conversion of nitrogen into ammonia and carbon dioxide to other C1 compounds; ammonia nitrification; regolith detoxification and enrichment; recycling mission materials; (2) fuel production: the aforementioned methane; C2/C3 alkanes; nitrous oxide from nitrite and acetate; diesellike fuels from recycled inedible plant mass; hydrazine via anammox bacteria from ammonia; (3) biopolymer production, use, and recycling: generation from methane and C1 substrates; additives production; testing in additive manufacturing devices; chemical/ biological recycling; (4) process engineering: optimization of platform organisms for maximal yield and tolerance, including mesophilic and extremophile bioprocessing in novel bioreactors; platform chemicals for downstream biological processes; (5) pharmaceutical synthesis by microbes and plants for analgesics, bone regeneration, and anticancer; (6) increased food production by microbes and plants through selection, plant/microbe synergies in restricted root-zone volumes, genetic engineering, plant-microbiome enhancement, and innovative light delivery systems for photosynthesis in efficient space-ready plant growth chambers; (7) plant system waste recycling and plant cell wall deconstruction; and (8) demonstration system integration, testing, seeding, and incorporation of autonomy. Our innovations include: novel artificial photosynthetic substrates coupled to microbes and enzymes to effectively harvest light and split water to fix both carbon dioxide and nitrogen into critical feedstocks for microbial and plant biomanufacturing; the design of effective microbial communities and bioprocessing techniques for a range of microbially-produced plastics with tunable processing and mechanical properties derivable from available feedstocks and recycling materials; the leveraging of a unique, reproducible mars environment-simulation chamber to explore the bounds of operation of mesophilic and extremophilic microbes to reduce cost for conditioning in mars environments; characterizing, engineering, and optimizing diverse non-model microbes that will support beneficial plant phenotypes; cutting-edge techniques in using plants and inedible plant biomass to quickly and efficiently produce important classes of human drugs that require chemistries unavailable in microbial cells; optimized plants and plant growth chambers that address the availability of light, stressors, and energy likely to be encountered in a deep space cultivation environment; and novel computation systems to capture, model, analyze, test and disseminate biological data across cubes integrated processes and subsystem modules. Cubes' individual approaches to media production, mission product manufacture, and food and pharmaceutical synthesis, amplified by a focus on integration and optimization, will lead to a strong data-driven, technologically-backed platform for space biomanufacturing.