Astropharmacy

During long term space missions, astronauts will encounter situations that are impossible to fully predict in advance. The isolation of the crew, for many years at a time, means that mission architecture needs to include plans for as many unpredictable situations as possible. The harsh environment of space and other planets will put high pressure on astronaut’s bodies. Providing on-demand, customizeable medical care under those conditions is very challenging. 
We cannot plan for all pharmacy needs of astronauts by stocking the required drugs in advance. Long space missions require novel approach to producing pharmacticals on short notice from pre-defined, limited raw materials.
Synthetic minimal cells provide just the right kind of programmable bioreactors that can be used to manufacture small molecule and biological drugs in short amount of time. Synthetic cells can be lyophilised and stored for a long time, and the programmability of the synthetic cell genetic circuits means almost every kind of chemical transition can be coded with the appropriate enzyme, and new enzymatic pathways for manufacturing drugs can be created on demand.
Our research focuses on designing mission-oriented solutions for preparation and storage of synthetic cells for the purposes of small scale, fast and responsive manufacturing of pharmaceuticals.