Dr. Aaron J. Berliner is a multidisciplinary researcher in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he investigates the effects of space radiation on biological systems, bridging radiobiology, space bioprocess engineering, and bioastronautics. His work explores how cosmic radiation impacts human health and biotechnological systems for long-duration space missions, often in collaboration with experts like Dr. Silvia Formenti and Dr. Christopher Mason. He earned his PhD in Bioengineering (2022) and MS in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, following earlier studies in biomedical engineering and synthetic biology at Boston University. Previously, he was a postdoctoral scholar, lecturer, and leader of the NASA-funded CUBES (Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space) project at UC Berkeley, focusing on off-world biomanufacturing, terraforming concepts, and synthetic biology for Mars missions. Dr. Berliner has contributed to high-impact publications on space bioprocess engineering and has been cited over 480 times. His innovative research integrates nuclear engineering, bioengineering, and astrobiology to advance sustainable human exploration beyond Earth.

2026 CME NASA Symposium Abstract – From Resupply to Resourcefulness: Space Bioprocess Engineering Beyond Earth
As NASA advances toward sustained human exploration of the Moon and Mars, mission success will depend on biomanufacturing strategies tailored to destination-specific constraints. Two considerations are especially important: the availability of logistical resupply, which is more favorable for lunar missions, and the availability of in situ resources, which becomes far more important for Martian missions. These differences fundamentally shape mission concept of operations and determine whether biological systems are optimized for supplementation, recycling, or deeper resource conversion. In this presentation, I discuss an integrated offworld biomanufactory for producing food, pharmaceuticals, and mission-relevant materials from local and recycled inputs. I highlight quantitative frameworks for evaluating these systems across long-duration lunar and Martian missions, showing how logistics, resource availability, and system integration together drive the design of robust and sustainable space biomanufacturing architectures.