For the past two decades, microbial monitoring of the International Space Station (ISS) has relied on culture-dependent methods that require return to Earth for analysis.
Sulfate and iron oxide deposits in Río Tinto (Southwestern Spain) are a terrestrial analog of early martian hematite-rich regions. Understanding the distribution and drivers of microbial life in iron-rich environments […]
Dry permafrost is a challenging environment for microbial life due to cold, dry, and often oligotrophic conditions. In 2016, Elephant Head, Antarctica, was confirmed as the second site on Earth […]
The microbiome plays a key role in the health of all metazoans. Whether and how the microbiome favors the adaptation processes of organisms to extreme conditions, such as those of […]
Cytosine is an essential chemical molecule in living systems, such as DNA and RNA, it is essential in astrobiology to study how it behaves under probable primitive conditions.
Life depends on a conserved set of chemical energy currencies that are relics of early biochemistry. One of these is ATP, a molecule that, when paired with a divalent metal […]
The central dogma at the core of molecular biology states that information flows from DNA to RNA and then to protein. Our research seeks to introduce a conceptually novel approach […]
NASA-supported researchers have used a laboratory technique called directed evolution to create an RNA enzyme that is capable of carrying out RNA polymerase activity. In living cells, protein polymerases catalyze […]
The beginning of life on Earth and its evolution over billions of years continue to intrigue researchers worldwide. The central dogma or the directional flow of genetic information from a […]
Scientists have long pondered the beginnings of life on Earth. One theory is that RNA, which is ubiquitous across all domains of life, played a central role in early life. […]
