By Daniel P. Tapaoan, Jr. 

Prof. Peter James Icalia Gann of Mariano Marcos State University (MMSU) has led a groundbreaking research study on growing gene-edited rice on Mars conducted in the University of Arkansas (U of A) in the United States. 

A breakthrough in growing food on the Red Planet, the study suggests that rice can grow and survive in Martian regolith through control of stress-related genes and the toxic perchlorate salts in the planet soil. 

It was presented at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference held in March this year, and featured in top-tier magazines including Forbes, Science Daily and Science News in the US.

In the experiment, Prof. Gann and his team created a Martian simulant using basaltic rich soil mined from the Mojave Desert, with the help of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 

“In the Martian simulant, we grew three varieties of rice, including one wild-type and two gene-edited lines with genetic mutations that better enable them to respond to drought, sugar starvation, and salinity. We also grew the same in a regular potted mix and a hybrid of the two,” he shared.

Prof. Gann said they discovered that gene-edited rice plants grow well in the Martian simulant if a quarter of it is potting soil. They also found that three grams of perchlorate per kilogram of Martian soil is the limit that any rice plant can grow. 

After this, the team will experiment newly developed Martian soil, and with other rice strains that have increased tolerance for higher salt concentrations. Later on, they will place the gene-edited crops into a Mars simulation chamber that replicates the temperature and atmosphere of the planet.

A professor of biotechnology, molecular genetics and animal science of the MMSU College of Agriculture, Food and Sustainable Development, Prof. Gann is a doctoral candidate in cell and molecular biology in the U of A under the Fulbright-Commission on Higher Education (CHED) scholarship program. He is also one of the ambassadors of the American Society of Plant Biologists, a professional organization that is devoted to the advancement of plant sciences.

His co-researchers are Mr. Abhilash Ramachandran, a post-doctoral fellow at the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, Ms. Yheni Dwiningsih, a post-doctoral associate in plant sciences; Mr. Dominic Dharwadker, an undergraduate student in the Honors College; and Ms. Vibha Srivastava, a professor in the U of A Department of Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences. (StratCom)