Aerospace microbiology and biosecurity:potential risks and translational opportunities
LIU Yong
Abstract：Aerospace biosafety is a critical field dedicated to ensuring the safety of spaceflight and preventing extraterrestrial biological risks.Unique aerospace environmental factors—such as microgravity,radiation,temperature,and atmospheric pressure—act as significant selective pressures that drive microbial adaptation.These changes may manifest as reactivation of latent viruses in the host,enhanced bacterial pathogenicity,and structural alterations in the gut,skin,and oral microbiota.Currently,microbial control measures are implemented across all spacecraft systems,from material selection to sterilization processes,to mitigate external contamination.However,the human microbiome,consisting of symbiotic microorganisms,cannot be fully eradicated,thereby posing a potential biosafety risk.Meanwhile,the unique aerospace environment may also offer new perspectives for discovering novel patterns of microbial stress-driven evolution,new targets for pathogenicity alteration,and new mechanisms of host-pathogen immune interactions.This review systematically summarizes the impact of unique aerospace environmental factors on latent viruses and common opportunistic pathogens,as well as their underlying mechanisms,aiming to provide novel insights and strategic approaches for medical protection,systematic prevention,and coordinated ground-space exploitation of new resources to ensure spaceflight safety.
Keywords：aerospace medicinemicrobial communitylatent virusopportunistic infectionsbiosafetymicrogravitycosmic radiationinfection control
Publication Date：2026-01-31
Online Publishing Date：2026-08-26(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：10( 1-10 )