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University of Florida — Ferl/Paul Space Plants Lab

The deepest academic engagement in the FO portfolio: 3 FO projects spanning 15 years, embedded in a 25+ year space plant biology program with 11 orbital and 5+ suborbital experiments. PI flew to space himself.

Updated: Session 98, 2026-04-07

Summary

Rob Ferl and Anna-Lisa Paul run the Space Plants Lab at the University of Florida — the most prolific academic space biology group in NASA's portfolio. Their FO projects are three nodes in a much larger arc that spans Space Shuttle missions (1999), ISS experiments (TAGES, CARA, APEX03-2, Plant Habitat-03), and landmark science (first plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith, Communications Biology 2022). In August 2024, Ferl became the first NASA-funded university researcher to fly to space and conduct his own experiment, carrying Arabidopsis plants on Blue Origin NS-25.

The FO projects specifically developed and validated biological imaging and gene expression analysis hardware for suborbital and parabolic flight environments. The imaging system (FLEX) enables autonomous, high-resolution fluorescent data collection during gravity transitions. The genomics project ([106579]) conducted the first human-tended, whole-genome gene expression experiments on a suborbital vehicle.

Outcome category: Research/Science Infrastructure — no commercial product, but the FO-tested imaging and genomics platforms feed directly into ISS experiments and enabled the PI's own crewed spaceflight. The downstream impact is measured in publications (100+ career total, ~4,900 citations for Paul alone), ISS experiment deployments, and scientific firsts.

People

Person Role Affiliations Notes
Rob Ferl PI (all 3 FO projects) UF Distinguished Professor; Director, UF Astraeus Space Institute; Assistant Vice President of Research NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal; flew Blue Origin NS-25 Aug 29, 2024
Anna-Lisa Paul Co-I (all 3 FO projects) UF Research Professor; Director, UF Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research (ICBR) NASA Medal of Honor for Exceptional Scientific Achievement; ~4,900 citations

Both received the NSS Space Pioneer Award for Scientific Achievement (2025), presented at ISDC Orlando, June 2025.

Anna-Lisa Paul received the SURA Distinguished Scientist Award (August 12, 2025) — one of only 5 UF faculty to receive this honor since 2007. $5,000 honorarium. Cited for "groundbreaking contributions to space biology and her leadership in advancing scientific exploration beyond Earth."

Both delivered the Fall 2024 UF Commencement Address (December 2024).

FO Projects (3)

12182 — Telemetric Biological Imaging

  • Period: 2011-09-07 to 2015-07-16
  • TRL: 4 → 7
  • Status: Completed
  • What it was: Calibrated fluorescent imaging instrumentation (previously developed for Shuttle/ISS) for parabolic flight and suborbital timeframes. Built on PI experience from previous campaigns.
  • TX: TX08.1.1 (Detectors and Focal Planes)
  • Outcome: Advanced From 8148 (2011) — erroneous linkage (SWaP Optimized Space Transceivers, unrelated SBIR). Real heritage is from Shuttle/ISS imaging systems (not captured in TechPort outcomes).
  • Key result: Validated that GFP/fluorescent imaging systems could capture meaningful biological data in the short microgravity windows of parabolic flight (20-25 sec) and suborbital missions (3-4 min). This was the proof-of-concept that led to FLEX.

106695 — Biological Imaging in Support of Suborbital Science (FLEX)

  • Period: 2019-10-01 to 2025-10-31
  • TRL: 6 → 6 (started at 6, target 7 — did not reach target; TechPort records current TRL as 6)
  • Status: Completed
  • What it was: Refined the biological imaging system with autofocus, modern resolution, and new biological sensors. "Flight-proven but lacking autofocus and modern resolution" — improvements addressed these shortcomings.
  • TX: TX06.3.1 (Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis) — TX mismatch flagged; ML predicts TX08.1.1 (Detectors)
  • Outcome: Advanced From 88581 (2019) — erroneous linkage (Enceladus Organic Analyzer, completely unrelated JPL project). Real predecessor is [12182] Telemetric Biological Imaging.
  • Views: 2,863 (high for an academic FO project)
  • Key result: Final flight was Blue Origin NS-35 (September 18, 2025, delayed from Aug 23 due to avionics issues) — FLEX's 5th New Shepard flight. Uncrewed, automated; tracked fluorescently tagged Arabidopsis gene expression through gravity transitions. Funded by NASA Flight Opportunities and Biological and Physical Sciences programs. No publications from NS-35 data yet.

106579 — Human Tended Space Biology: Enabling Suborbital Genomics and Gene Expression

  • Period: 2018-06-01 to 2026-06-30
  • TRL: 6 → 6 (target 6 — knowledge payload, not maturation)
  • Status: Active (ends Jun 2026)
  • What it was: Developed operational concepts and deployment tests for gene expression analyses using plants as test organisms. First suborbital, human-tended, whole-genome gene expression experiments. Used KSC Fixation Tubes for safety containment.
  • TX: TX06.3.1 (Medical Diagnosis and Prognosis)
  • Views: 1,250
  • Library: Flight Testing Gene Expression Technology (NASA flight summary)
  • Key result: This is the project that Ferl's Blue Origin NS-25 flight (Aug 2024) was executed under. He carried Arabidopsis in KSC Fixation Tubes (KFTs) velcroed to his flight suit legs, activating them at 4 mission phases: pre-launch, microgravity onset, descent start, and landing. Initial results show "intense metabolic changes in the early moments of spaceflight, distinct from but connected to long-term orbital adaptations."

The Broader Arc: 25+ Years of Space Plant Biology

The FO projects are embedded in a research program that is one of the longest-running in NASA space biology:

Space Shuttle Era (1999-2011)

  • First space experiment: 5-day flight on Space Shuttle Columbia (1999)
  • Multiple Shuttle missions studying Arabidopsis gene expression in microgravity

ISS Experiments (2012-present)

Experiment Description Key Finding
TAGES GFP reporter gene expression in Arabidopsis roots Remarkable gene expression changes associated with cell wall restructuring, especially in roots
TAGES-ISA Growth and molecular changes during spaceflight Continued characterization of spaceflight transcriptome
CARA Characterizing Arabidopsis Root Attractions (2014, CASIS-funded) Molecular/genetic mechanisms influencing root growth without gravity, with/without light
APEX03-2 GFP-reporter gene expression (2015, NASA Space Biology) Root-organ-specific transcriptomic responses
Plant Habitat-03 Epigenetic Adaptation to Spaceflight Environment Epigenetic (not just genetic) adaptation — plants may "remember" spaceflight

Total: 11 orbital experiments on Shuttle and ISS.

FO Suborbital Experiments (2011-2026)

3 FO projects + participation in additional parabolic flight campaigns. Total: 5+ suborbital experiments.

Landmark Science

  • "Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration" — Paul, Elardo, Ferl. Communications Biology (Nature portfolio), 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03334-8. First demonstration that plants can germinate and grow in actual lunar soil. Covered by CNN, ScienceDaily, and NASA press. Directly relevant to Artemis-era agriculture.
  • "Spaceflight transcriptomes: unique responses to a novel environment" — Paul et al. Astrobiology, 2012. Foundational characterization of how spaceflight rewires plant gene expression.
  • "Light has a principal role in the Arabidopsis transcriptomic response to the spaceflight environment" — Zhou, Ferl, Paul. npj Microgravity 10, 82 (August 2024). CARA experiment — comparing light vs. dark transcriptomes aboard ISS.
  • "GLARE: discovering hidden patterns in spaceflight transcriptome using representation learning" — Seo, Strickland, Zhou, Barker, Ferl, Paul, Gilroy. npj Microgravity, October 28, 2025. Applies manifold learning and self-supervised learning to CARA root-tip transcriptome; revealed additional hypoxic-response gene expression patterns beyond original study.
  • "Simulated Microgravity Enhances Germ Tube Elongation by Golovinomyces cichoracearum" — Schuerger, Soltez, Paul, Ferl. December 2025. Plant pathogen/microgravity interaction.
  • "Spaceflight impacts xyloglucan oligosaccharide abundance in Arabidopsis thaliana root cell walls" — Diao et al. (incl. Paul, Ferl). Life Sciences in Space Research 41 (2024).
  • "Single-molecule long-read methylation profiling reveals regional DNA methylation regulated by Elongator Complex Subunit 2" — Zhou et al. Biology Direct 19, 33 (2024). Epigenetic profiling in spaceflight Arabidopsis roots.
  • Total publications: 100+ career (Paul's Google Scholar: ~4,900 citations).

The NS-25 Flight: PI as Crew Member (Aug 29, 2024)

On August 29, 2024, Rob Ferl launched on Blue Origin New Shepard mission NS-25 from Launch Site One in West Texas, reaching 345,958 feet altitude (above the Karman Line). He is the first NASA-funded university researcher to conduct his own experiments in space.

Experiment protocol: - Carried Arabidopsis thaliana in KSC Fixation Tubes (KFTs) velcroed to flight suit legs - Activated KFTs at 4 mission phases to capture gene expression snapshots: 1. Pre-launch (ground control baseline) 2. Microgravity onset (after engine cutoff) 3. End of weightless period (descent begins) 4. Post-landing - Anna-Lisa Paul conducted identical control experiments simultaneously on the ground

Initial results: "Intense metabolic changes in the early moments of spaceflight, which are distinct from, but connected to, the long-term adaptations seen in orbit." This fills a gap — previous research captured only long-duration orbital responses. The suborbital data captures the transition.

Publication status (as of Apr 2026): NS-25 results are still unpublished after 18 months — manuscripts reportedly in preparation as of the Aug 2025 anniversary interview. The key finding reported: intense metabolic changes in the early moments of spaceflight, connecting to but distinct from long-duration orbital adaptations. The 18-month gap between flight (Aug 2024) and publication is notable but not unusual for genomics data requiring extensive bioinformatics analysis.

Follow-up: NS-35 (September 18, 2025, uncrewed) — Ferl and Paul returned to Blue Origin's West Texas site with the BISS/FLEX payload for its 5th New Shepard flight, tracking fluorescently tagged genes during the rapid shift from gravity to microgravity and back. No publications from NS-35 data yet.

UF Anniversary Coverage (Aug 2025): UF News published a one-year anniversary feature reflecting on NS-25 and previewing NS-35 (which flew the following month). Ferl described the experience as transformative for understanding the researcher-as-instrument paradigm.

UF Astraeus Space Institute — Update

  • Founded 2024 with $2.5M in strategic funding from UF President Ben Sasse's initiative
  • 150+ faculty across disciplines, $50M+ in space-related research, $600K+ awarded to faculty via Space Research Initiative grants
  • Rob Ferl was founding director
  • September 2025: Rachael Seidler (professor of applied physiology/kinesiology, ~200 papers, ~$20M in funding, leads NASA-funded 5-year post-flight crew health study) named new director. Ferl transitioned to Assistant Vice President of Research at UF while retaining his Astraeus affiliation
  • Partners: Space Florida, Space Life Sciences Laboratory at KSC, ISS National Lab, NASA, U.S. Space Force, private space companies

What Makes This Arc Distinctive

  1. Deepest academic FO engagement: 3 projects, 15 years, in a program that spans 25+ years. No other academic group has this depth of FO involvement.
  2. PI flew to space: Ferl is the only FO PI who has physically flown to conduct his own experiment. This is a unique data point — the researcher as instrument.
  3. FO as pipeline node: The FO projects specifically adapted ISS-proven technology for suborbital timeframes, and the suborbital data (short microgravity windows) complements orbital data (long-duration). FO fills a temporal gap that ISS cannot.
  4. Lunar regolith paper: The 2022 Communications Biology paper on growing plants in Apollo soil is one of the highest-profile outputs of any NASA-funded space biology program. While not directly FO-funded, it shares the same PI team and builds on the same Arabidopsis expertise that FO helped develop.
  5. Institutional recognition: Both PIs hold NASA medals. NSS Space Pioneer Award 2025. Ferl directs UF's Astraeus Space Institute. Paul directs ICBR.

Outcome Assessment

Outcome category: Research/Science Infrastructure + PI Career Achievement

No commercial product. This is pure academic research. The downstream impact is: - Scientific publications (100+, ~4,900 citations) - ISS experiment deployments (11 orbital) - Scientific firsts (lunar regolith plant growth, suborbital gene expression) - Instrument development (FLEX imaging platform, flight-proven) - Career arc (NASA medals, NSS Pioneer Award, SURA Distinguished Scientist Award, Astraeus Institute founding directorship)

FO-specific contribution: The 3 FO projects validated that biological imaging and genomics tools designed for ISS could work in short-duration suborbital microgravity. This bridged a gap between ground-based parabolic flights (20 sec) and ISS (months). The NS-25 crewed flight, enabled by the FO-developed protocol, captured gene expression data at a temporal resolution impossible on ISS.

Time dimension: - FO entry: 2011 ([12182]) - FO crewed flight: 2024 (NS-25) — 13-year arc from first FO project to PI flying in space - Research program start: 1999 (Shuttle) — 25+ years and counting

Active project [106579] status (Apr 2026): Still active, ends Jun 2026. TechPort last updated Jan 22, 2026. No change in description or status since Session 54.

Confidence: Confirmed (all data from TechPort records, UF institutional press, NSS announcement, NASA flight summaries)

  • Space Lab Technologies — builds plant growth hardware (LILYPOND, PHILM) for the same space agriculture ecosystem
  • UF Chung Cryogenics — another deep UF academic arc in FO (cryogenics, not biology)
  • Archetypes — Ferl/Paul fits a new archetype: "Deep Academic Partnership" where FO is one node in a decades-long research program
  • FO Mission Infusion Summary — NS-25 flight is not "mission infusion" in the traditional sense, but represents a unique PI-as-crew outcome