Microbiological concerns, in particular, have repeatedly emerged as determinants of flight readiness. For example, in at least one case, suspected contamination of the potable water supply nearly forced a launch delay. In another instance, a crew member's urinary tract infection nearly led to early termination of the mission, in part due to the difficulty of accurately diagnosing the nature of the infection in-flight.
Microbial problems are an increasing concern with the trend towards longer-duration missions.
It is essential to the success of such missions that systems be available that deliver acceptable quality of air and water during the anticipated lifetime of the spacecraft. We propose to develop an appropriate monitoring system based on DNA probe technology. Dr. George E. Fox, Professor of Biochemical and Biophysical Sciences, prepares to use a refrigerated sample. Currently, diagnostics based on nucleic acid hybridization are revolutionizing clinical identification of difficult bacterial pathogens in terrestrial medicine. This pattern of sequence conservation makes it possible to design oligonucleotide hybridization probes that can distinguish individual organisms or groupings of related organisms.