Microbial detection and monitoring in advanced life support systems like the International Space Station

Potentially pathogenic microbes and so-called technophiles may form a serious threat in advanced life support systems, such as the International Space Station (ISS). They not only pose a threat to the health of the crew, but also to the technical equipment and materials of the space station. The development of fast and easy, to use molecular detection and quantification methods for application in manned spacecraft is therefore desirable and may also be valuable for applications on Earth. In this paper we present the preliminary results of the SAMPLE experiment in which we performed molecular microbial analysis on environmental samples of the ISS as part of an ESA-MAP project.