Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi

Last week I saw plants for the first time in 4 months. I might have gotten a little teary. We get fresh fruit and veggies via our cargo vehicles and they provide welcome pops of color and scent, but it turns out this does not compare at all to seeing living plants and smelling the rich scent of vegetation. This work was part of the Plant Habitat-06 experiment investigating physiological and genetic defense mechanisms of wild-type and immune-deficient tomato plants during spaceflight. My job was to harvest leaves from each plant for eventual return to Earth. Researchers will use genetic sequencing and analyses to compare the defense responses and immune functions of the different tomato plants grown in space vs parallel experiments back on Earth. Results of the study contribute to our understanding of plant responses to pathogens, which are responsible for 20-40% of global crop loss, and support the development of methods to grow plants for food production on future space missions.