The Open Science Data Repository Download

Spring 2025

Welcome to the spring edition of the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) Download! In this issue, we’re excited to share recent updates and upcoming opportunities across our open science community. From new data releases and tool enhancements to collaborative research highlights, the OSDR continues to grow as a hub for transparent, accessible, and impactful science. Thank you for being part of our mission to accelerate discovery through open data.

New and Improved OSDR API

The OSDR Biological Data API revolutionizes access to GeneLab and ALSDA datasets by enabling efficient data and metadata retrieval through a REST interface or tabular format. Recent updates include interactive in-browser viewers that simplify data exploration and improve usability for both basic and advanced queries. By supporting streamlined, scalable access to comprehensive biological data, the API enhances reproducibility and accelerates discoveries in space biology research.

Explore the New API

New NBISC Portal

The NASA Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC) is a biorepository that stores and shares non-human biospecimens from NASA-funded spaceflight and ground-based studies, available to researchers with secured funding. On January 28, NBISC launched its new Biospecimen Portal, offering advanced search filters and interactive tools to explore over 100,000 samples across diverse species and tissue types. This user-friendly platform enhances access, encourages collaboration, and accelerates scientific discovery in spaceflight-related and biological research.

Biospecimen Search Tool

2025 AWG Catalyst Summit

The 2025 AWG Catalyst Summit, held virtually on March 12th, brought together around 200 participants from the rapidly growing "Open Science for Life in Space" Analysis Working Groups (AWGs), which have expanded to over 1,000 members across more than 50 countries. The event featured lightning talks from 25 AWG subgroup leads showcasing a wide range of research topics, interactive breakout discussions, and tutorials on NASA’s Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) tools and resources. The keynote address featured a science talk from Drs. Mark Fernandez and James Casaletto on the ISS’s Spaceborne Computer and the recent implementation of a federated learning model deployment between space and Earth for biosciences and health. Hosted on the Gather.town platform, the Summit aimed to foster collaboration, support subgroup formation, and train the community in open science best practices essential for advancing life sciences in deep space. Watch each of the sections below:

OSDR-Enabled Publications

It’s been only four months since the start of 2025 and there have been 9 new OSDR-enabled publications! Check out some of these latest publications and more on the OSDR publications list.

Space exploration and risk of Parkinson's disease: A perspective review

Ali N, Beheshti A, Hampkian G, (2025). Space exploration and risk of Parkinson’s disease: a perspective review, npj microgravity. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41526-024-00457-6

Datasets: OSD-13, OSD-52, OSD-114, OSD-174

Bridging Earth and Space: A flexible and resilient federated learning framework deployed on the International Space Station

Casaletto J A, Foley P, Fernandez M, Sanders L M, Scott R T, Ranjan S, Jain S, et al (2025). Bridging Earth and Space: A Flexible and Resilient Federated Learning Framework Deployed on the International Space Station, bioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.01.14.633017

Datasets: OSD-435

Exploring the impact of microgravity on gene expression: Dysregulated pathways and candidate repurposing drugs

Galcenko K, Bourdakou M M, Spyrou G M, (2025). Exploring the Impact of Microgravity on Gene Expression: Dysregulated Pathways and Candidate Repurposed Drugs, International Journal of Molecular Sciences. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms26031287

Datasets: OSD-125, OSD-172, OSD-188, OSD-297

Spring 2025 Meet the Authors Event

Join us on April 24, 2025 for the third event in the "Meet the Authors" series. The upcoming event will feature Drs. Borja Barbero Barcinella, Richard Barker, and John Z. Kiss, who will present and discuss their recent publications on Arabidopsis responses to spaceflight and microgravity. This interactive session encourages public engagement, collaboration, and learning through Open Science, with registration required to attend.

When: April 24, 2025 from 9 - 10am PT

Where: Virtual

Registration required: Meeting Registration - Zoom

OSDR News

OSDR Attends HRP IWS 2025

The HRP IWS 2025 Workshop was held in Galveston, Texas, from January 28–31, bringing together leading experts to advance human spaceflight research. As NASA continues expanding exploration beyond low Earth orbit, the HRP remains critical in identifying and mitigating risks to astronaut health and performance. This workshop served as a platform for experts in space medicine, radiation biology, behavioral health, and human factors engineering to share cutting-edge research, refine risk models, and develop countermeasures for long-duration missions. Six OSDR members actively participated, delivering oral and poster presentations, and engaging with the Analysis Working Group community during a networking event. Additionally, a demonstration table highlighted OSDR tools and capabilities, providing attendees with valuable insights. Below are the OSDR presentations from the workshop:

Samrawit Gebre and Danielle Lopez – Demo table
Sigrid Reinsch
The NASA Space Radiation Biospecimen and Tissue Sharing Collection
NASA’s Space Health Impacts for the NASA Experience (SHINE) Training Program: Space Radiation Curriculum
Walter Alvarado
Advancing Biospecimen Discoverability in NASA’s Biological Institutional Scientific Collection (NBISC)
AI Curation Methods for NASA Scientific Data
Kirill Grigorev – RadLab: Advancing Databases, Graphical and Programming Interfaces for Space Radiation Data
Charlotte Nelson
AI and Knowledge Graph-Powered CDSS to Support Multi-Diagnostic Medical Scenarios During Deep Space Missions
NASA GeneLab: Knowledge Graph Fabric Enables Deep Biomedical Analysis of Multi-Omics Datasets
Ryan Scott – Beyond FAIR: Engagement, Data Usability, and Open Community Productivity Through the NASA Open Science Data Repository

Latest Success Stories

Welcome to the “Open Science Success Stories”. These short narratives showcase insights garnered from interviews with members of the AWG community who have utilized Open Science datasets as a catalyst for advancing their careers in the field of space biology. Listen to the latest interviews.

Watch Series

Latest OSDR Chats

Check out the latest releases of OSDR Chats on our YouTube channel!

Kostantinos Adamopoulos - “NASA GeneLab derived microarray studies of Mus musculus and Homo sapiens organisms in altered gravitational conditions."

Oluwamayowa Akinsuyi - “Gut permeability among astronauts during space missions."

Watch Series

Winter 2025 Meet the Authors Event

On January 23, 2025, the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) held its second “Meet the Authors” session, a virtual interview panel of four authors of OSDR-enabled publications for 66 live attendees. The one-hour event focused on the theme of “Bridging Gaps in Cellular Space Health Knowledge” and consisted of three parts: A brief overview of each publication by their author, conversations as panel questions, and audience interaction. Authors represented global efforts: Dr Afshin Beheshti on miRNAs, Dr Begum Mathyk on insulin and estrogen studies, Dr Joseph Borg on hemoglobin formation, and Dr Jakub Mieczkowski on the chromosomal positioning and epigenetic factors. Authors expressed intersections between each of their papers and the value of both “space for space” and “space for Earth” studies.

Watch the Series

New Educator Materials Available

This semester, teachers looking to try something new while meeting curriculum goals can explore new space biology lessons developed by GeneLab for High Schools (GL4HS) teacher interns. These include a high school anatomy/physiology lesson using space biology data by Brittany Grissom and an engaging gene expression lesson for general biology by Stephanie Tsai, along with an introductory activity on using the Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) to teach the scientific method.

Latest Data Releases

Since the start of 2025, a total of 13 transcriptomic, 4 genomic, and 2 proteomic/metabolomic, GeneLab datasets have been added to the Open Science Data Repository this year.

To ensure omics data hosted on the Open Science Data Repository are accessible to and interpretable by a broad scientific audience, OSDR collaborated with our AWG scientific community to develop and standardize consensus processing pipelines for each omics data type. Standardizing pipelines is necessary to minimize variation in data processing, which enables the integration of data from the diverse array of spaceflight and analog experiments hosted on OSDR. View the latest 10 processed datasets.

Since the start of 2025, 5 ALSDA (pheno-physiological-behavioral-imaging) datasets have been released. A sampling of these datasets include: behavioral video from drosophila aboard the International Space Station; immunostaining microscopy of the retinal-blood barrier from RR9; muscle calcium uptake data from spectrofluorometry RR1 and RR9; echocardiogram-ultrasound data from mice exposed to low-dose oxygen ions and protons; and so much more. These first-to-be-released pheno-physio datasets enable multi-hierarchical analytics between the molecular genomic level to the tissue, organ, system, and whole organismal behavioral levels. Sincerest appreciation to the 100+ ALSDA AWG members who provided feedback on assay metadata and tabular/imaging data standards enabling scientific.

This brings the grand total to 546 datasets in the repository!