Lab-on-a-chip astrobiology analyzer, Phase I

The overall goal of this program (through Phase III) is to develop an astrobiology analyzer to measure chemical signatures of life in extraterrestrial settings. The analyzer will employ a lab-on-a-chip to extract biochemical signatures from soil or water samples and surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy to detect and identify the signatures. The goal of the Phase I program is to demonstrate feasibility by separating mixtures of amino acids in SER-active sol-gel capillary columns. This will be accomplished by developing new sol-gels that selectively extract the amino acids from flowing water, while at the same time providing SER activity to identify the amino acids, individually and as a class. The Phase II work will design, build and test the proposed prototype lab-on-a-chip analyzer. This will be accomplished by incorporating the sol-gel coated capillaries into a lab-on-a-chip, and performing chemical separation and Raman signal enhancement sufficiently to identify chemical signatures of life. More »