1 Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Gaziantep University, Gaziantep, Turkey .
2 Senior Advisor, Writer and Researcher, Technology, Society and Democracy, Toronto, Canada .
OMICS. 2018 Nov;22(11):696-699. doi: 10.1089/omi.2018.0167. Epub 2018 Oct 26.
Omics technologies are key to research and innovation in human health, food and nutrition, drugs, agriculture, and ecology research. Yet, the actual scope of applications is much broader. One emerging possibility is planetary science driven in part by current debates on and possibilities for travel to Mars. In July 2018, radar evidence has suggested the presence of subglacial liquid water in a 20-km-wide zone, likely a saltwater lake, in the Planum Australe region in the south pole of Mars. If confirmed, this will be a promising place to search for microbial life on the red planet. Meanwhile, existential threats to life on earth such as climate change are bolstering the current interests by spacefaring nations for manned long-term space travel to other planets. A new global space industry is also on the rise; Mars-related technology innovation could potentially allow for rapid Earth-to-Earth transport as well, for example, in times of humanitarian and ecological crisis. Against this overarching context, we coin and define here the new concept of "Mars-omics": the systems level study of how travel to and being on Mars affect human health, and how human presence on Mars impacts the life forms that might already be there, through changes such as space agriculture and other planetary transformations in Mars. Additionally, Mars-omics calls for new ways of thinking about scientific uncertainty and technology futures in such highly novel contexts. For example, how shall we frame scientific uncertainty when extrapolation of scientific unknowns across the planets is vastly difficult, nonlinear, and complex? Is uncertainty an accident or integral part of emerging technologies? These questions are important for achieving new relevance for and future progress in omics system science applications in planetary science and space explorations. In summary, this article suggests that omics has relevance in contexts beyond those on planet Earth. Moreover, past omics applications such as precision medicine may need to be reconceptualized in future novel settings, such as long-term space travel. We conclude the article with the key tenets of next-generation futurists in a context of Mars-omics. Space (still) is the final frontier for humans, medicine, engineering, and omics.
组学技术是人类健康、食品和营养、药物、农业和生态研究领域的研究和创新的关键。然而，实际应用的范围要广泛得多。一个新兴的可能性是行星科学，部分是由当前关于火星旅行的可能性和争论所驱动的。2018 年 7 月，雷达证据表明，在火星南极的阿斯特拉雷姆地区，一个 20 公里宽的区域可能存在地下液态水，很可能是一个咸水湖。如果得到证实，这将是在这颗红色星球上寻找微生物生命的有希望的地方。与此同时，地球生命面临的生存威胁，如气候变化，也在增强航天国家对载人长期太空旅行到其他行星的兴趣。一个新的全球太空产业也在崛起；与火星相关的技术创新也有可能实现快速的地球到地球的运输，例如，在人道主义和生态危机时期。在这种总体背景下，我们在这里创造并定义了一个新的概念：“火星组学”：研究人类前往火星和在火星上的活动如何影响人类健康，以及人类在火星上的存在如何通过空间农业和其他行星改造等方式影响可能已经存在的生命形式的系统水平研究。此外，火星组学需要以新的方式思考在这种高度新颖的背景下的科学不确定性和技术未来。例如，当行星之间的科学未知因素的推断极其困难、非线性且复杂时，我们应该如何构建科学不确定性？不确定性是新兴技术的意外还是固有部分？这些问题对于在行星科学和太空探索中实现组学系统科学应用的新相关性和未来进展非常重要。总之，本文认为，组学在地球以外的环境中具有相关性。此外，过去的组学应用，如精准医学，可能需要在未来的新环境中重新概念化，例如长期太空旅行。最后，本文以火星组学背景下的下一代未来主义者的关键原则为结尾。对人类、医学、工程和组学来说，太空仍然是最后的前沿。
