Adam Arkin, senior faculty scientist in the Environmental Genomics & Systems Biology Division, will lead the new NASA Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES). One of two Space Technology Research Institutes (STRIs) funded, CUBES will advance Advanced biological engineering techniques that could lead to biological manufacturing techniques using microbes and plantsresearch into an integrated, multi-function, multi-organism biomanufacturing system to produce fuel, materials, pharmaceuticals and food on long-term space missions.

In a New Scientist article profiling the new STRIs, Arkin said, “CUBES will work on an integrated way to use biology, starting from the available building blocks, to create all the things that astronauts and settlers will need, from food to pharmaceuticals to fuel.” Read more in the NASA press release.