Kiss research examines plant response to light in the absence of gravity

Funded by a five-year grant from NASA, Miami botany professor John Kiss is leading a new project to study plant development in space. Along with co-investigators Richard Edelmann, supervisor of Miami’s electron microscope facility and Roger Hangarter of Indiana University, Kiss is researching the response of plants to light in the absence of gravity.

NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) are collaborating to develop this project, which will be located in the American module (Destiny) on the International Space Station. Launch is scheduled for mid-2005.

Kiss and Edelmann successfully conducted plant experiments aboard the Space Shuttle during two flights in 1997. As in those experiments, the current research involves Arabidopsis, a small plant in the mustard family that was the focus of an international gene sequencing project analogous to the human genome project.

Because the environmental cues of gravity and light are particularly important in terms of plant development, understanding how plants integrate sensory input from multiple light and gravity perception systems will advance long-range goals to develop better crop plants on earth and determine plants’ potential use as a food and oxygen source during prolonged human time in space.

A past president of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB) and currently a member of its governing board, Kiss admits that while the space flight plant study will be limited in the near future due to assemblage of the ISS, its completion in 2009 should bring many more research opportunities.


The crew of Expedition 11 (pictured with Kiss) will conduct the experiments on the ISS.