Where no microbe has gone before

Mission

Our mission is to engineer microbes for Mars.

Biology is the ultimate green technology, capable of upcycling waste into food, water, and air: all the essentials for human life. However, today it is too unreliable, untested, and wasteful to be a mission-critical technology. That’s why we’re engineering hardy critters that perform gracefully even in the extreme conditions of space. By doing so, we aim to make biomanufacturing ubiquitous, reliable, and green — on Earth and beyond.

We are a nonprofit research organization based in San Francisco, California. We do moonshot marsshot science with an agile, startup-like team.

Contact

The science

Mars is not friendly to life.

It is a desert with extreme UV-C radiation, freezing temperatures, and soil that contains toxic chemicals.

However, organisms on Earth can tolerate each of the extremes of Mars individually:

C. sphaerospermum

C. sphaerospermum is a fungus isolated at Chernobyl. It is tolerant of high radiation doses and may actually absorb energy from radiation!

C. nivalis

C. nivalis is a snow algae that grows on snow, glaciers, and sea ice. It’s freeze-thaw tolerant and capable of growing at extremely low temperatures.

X. elegans

X. elegans is a lichen that succeeds in extreme environments like the Antarctic by growing at a snail’s pace—just 0.5mm/year. So far it has survived 16 days exposed to the vacuum of space.

D. radiodurans

D. radiodurans is a durable bacteria that grows in the presence of perchlorate, a toxin similar to bleach found in Martian soil. Today, it is employed to treat nuclear waste.

Female scientist in a yellow shirt filling tubes in a sunlit laboratory

We’re building a platform to mix and match these properties.

The hardy microbes we cultivate will be the first to thrive in their polyextreme environments.

These new pioneer species can pave the way to greener planets by remediating soil, upcycling waste streams, and making harsh areas more friendly to life.

Why?

Short-term biomanufacturing

Our pioneer microbes will be used for green manufacturing in resource-constrained environments, both on Earth and in space.

Long-term terraforming

The properties of these engineered microbes will answer basic science questions about the limits of life and inform the feasibility, cost, timescale, and approach for someday terraforming Mars.

I want to learn more!

The team

Open Roles

Pioneer is seeking new team members for the following roles. If you're interested in working with us but don't see a good fit below, let us know by filling out this form. We'll let you know when relevant roles open up.

There are currently no open roles.

Scientific Advisors

Samantha Piszkiewicz

Darren Platt

Samuel Levin

Learn more

Space Synthetic Biology: A Paradigm for Sustainability on Earth and Beyond

Here we present the case that synthetic biology is an enabling technology that will work in synergy with a growing bioeconomy to solve a broad array of challenges facing humans on- and off-Earth.

We can reliably measure salt tolerance 📏🧂

Today we’re glad to share that we’ve achieved traction! We can precisely and reliably 📏 measure the 🧂salt tolerance of bacteria in liquid culture.

Why Nothing Can Grow on Mars*

*probably. An essay on the challenges an organism would face outdoors on Mars.

Engineering Roadmap

Our roadmap for building up to a microbe for Mars, and the introduction to our open science publishing via substack.

2024 Mars Terraforming Workshop Proceedings

Proceedings of a two-day workshop designed to formulate an up-to-date perspective on the feasibility of terraforming Mars.

Polyextremophile engineering review

A review summarizing the basic mechanisms of extreme adaptations and synthetic biology's efforts to engineer extremophile organisms beyond what is found in nature.