Kathleen Rubins

Kathleen Hallisey "Kate" Rubins (born October 14, 1978) is an American microbiologist and NASA astronaut.

Kathleen Rubins graduated from Vintage High School in Napa, California, in 1996.

She received a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular biology from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. degree in cancer biology from Stanford University Medical School Biochemistry Department and Microbiology and Immunology Department.

She was a member of the Kappa Lambda chapter of the Chi Omega sorority while attending UC San Diego.

For as long as she can remember, Rubins had always wanted to be an astronaut.

Her initial understanding was that she would have to become a fighter pilot first and progress from there, but after getting involved with public health HIV prevention in high school she developed an interest in viruses and microbiology and decided to pursue that first instead.

Some of her hobbies include flying airplanes and jumping out of them, scuba diving, and entering triathlons, in which she was a member of the Stanford triathlon team.

Rubins conducted her undergraduate research on HIV-1 integration in the Infectious Diseases Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

She analyzed the mechanism of HIV integration, including several studies of HIV-1 Integrase inhibitors and genome-wide analyses of HIV integration patterns into host genomic DNA.

She obtained her Ph.D. from Stanford University and, with the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rubins (who was responsible for building its underlying microarray) and colleagues developed the first model of smallpox infection.

She also developed a complete map of the poxvirus transcriptome and studied virus-host interactions using both in-vitro and animal model systems.

Rubins accepted a Fellow/Principal Investigator position at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (MIT/Cambridge, Massachusetts) and headed a lab of researchers studying viral diseases that primarily affect Central and West Africa.

Work in the Rubins Lab focused on poxviruses and host-pathogen interaction as well as viral mechanisms for regulating host cell mRNA transcription, translation and decay.

In addition, she conducted research on transcriptome and genome sequencing of Ebolavirus, Marburgvirus, and Lassa mammarenavirus, and collaborative projects with the U.S. Army to develop therapies for Ebola and Lassa.

Dr. Rubins also conducted research regarding space radiation and its effects on astronauts.

The authors of this study investigated whether or not the Risk of Exposure-Induced Death (REID) that NASA had accepted was accurate enough.

Much of the radiation in space is from ion exposure and solar cycle activity.

The authors of the Nature paper concluded that although there are limitations in estimating the radiation levels that astronauts are exposed to while in space, more research needs to be done on the subject.

Another study that Dr. Rubins was involved with was the life-cycle analysis of a family of viruses including the smallpox virus.

The researchers utilized fluorescent protein-based reporters to monitor and analyze the function of the Vaccinia virus.

This study was important in starting to work on treatment for diseases like mpox.

The mpox is a zoonotic disease originating from the rainforest around Central and West Africa.

One can contract mpox when coming in contact with the virus from an animal, human, or any material that has been infected with the virus.

In 2003, there was a small mpox outbreak in the United States, which provided more motivation for the study to be conducted.

The results of this study provided useful information for the tracking of viral activity and replication.

, there is still no cure for mpox, but it can be controlled.

Rubins was a part of the research team that investigated the effects of microgravity on RNA isolation and PCR analysis.

She became the 60th woman to fly in space when she launched on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) on July 7, 2016.

She returned to Earth in Kazakhstan on October 30, 2016, aboard a Soyuz.

She was a crew member of Expedition 48/49 and Expedition 63/64 of the ISS.

Rubins has spent a total of 300 days, 1 hour, and 31 minutes in space which is the fourth most days in space by a U.S female astronaut.

Rubins was born in Farmington, Connecticut, and raised in Napa, California.

She did chores around the house to help her fund a trip to Space Camp in seventh grade.

The camp inspired her to take more math and science classes in school.

In July 2016, Rubin became the third female Space Camp alumna to fly in space.

Her father, Jim, still resides in Napa and her mother, Ann Hallisey, lives in Davis, California.

The experiments occurred between April 19 and May 3, 2017.

Operations required the use of the WetLab-2 hardware suite consisting of microgravity-compatible STT (ACT2 or Finger Loop syringe), SPM, bubble-removing Pipette Loader (PL), reaction tube centrifugation rotor and a Cepheid SmartCycler® for thermocycling/fluorescence readout.

This study was conducted while on board the International Space Station (ISS).

The experiment performed was one of the first successful ones in the WetLab-2, a research station built for microbiology in space.