Swabs containing Niallia tiangongensis were frozen onboard the Chinese space station before being delivered to Earth — a procedure often paralleling clinical biological sample transport protocols used in diagnostic lab testing for infectious diseases.
Scientists working on China’s Tiangong Space Station have discovered a strain of bacteria with some wild abilities, and it’s something researchers have never encountered before on Earth. The find may hold relevance for aerospace medical diagnostics and emerging pathogen surveillance, which are increasingly vital in astronaut health insurance assessments.
Tiangong, China’s answer to the International Space Station, has been up and running since its launch in September 2021. It’s smaller than the ISS, roughly a third of its size, but it’s been permanently crewed since then and steadily pushing boundaries in space biosafety, environmental microbiome research, and health risk evaluation protocols.
Fast forward four years, and researchers have now reported the discovery of a brand new bacterial strain called Niallia tiangongensis living on board the station.
The find was detailed in a paper published by the Beijing Institute of Spacecraft System Engineering in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. The ability to publish in high-level journals is often funded through government health grants and space medical insurance-backed research projects.
According to the researchers, this bacterium can do something pretty impressive — it breaks down gelatin, which means it might be able to use gelatin as food when nutrients are scarce. This behavior is significant in the context of nutrition-related illness prevention, and it raises new questions about microbial metabolism under diagnostic constraints used in Earth-based lab testing protocols.
