Meet the scientists!

This is a model of the LMC instrument, the pen shows you how small its going to be

I work the the Sensing in Extreme Environments group at Cranfield University. We are interested in detecting life in extreme environments both on Earth and beyond. At the moment I’m working on the development of the Life Marker Chip (LMC).

The LMC is an instrument designed to look for evidence of past or present life on Mars and is due to fly to Mars on the 2018 ExoMars mission. The LMC is being developed by a big team of scientists and engineers from all over Europe.

Today Mars is very cold and dry and has very high levels of UV radiation  on the surface so it isn’t an easy place for life to survive. But there is evidence that Mars was once warmer and wetter so its possible that life evolved on Mars a long time ago, but has since become extinct. Finding evidence of life on Mars would be very exciting because if there is life on Mars now, or there ever was life on Mars in the past, it is much more likely that there is life on other planets too. We’re not expecting to find little green men on Mars though, we are looking for very simple microbial life – lifeforms that consist of a single cell and are too small to be seen by eye – you would have to use a microscope.

On earth microbes are everywhere and they can survive in extreme environments including very cold and dry conditions like Antarctic valleys, deep under the ocean by hydrothermal vents where temperatures reach over 200 degrees centigrade and even in nuclear power stations with really high levels of radiation, so it’s possible that microbes could survive on Mars too. So how does the LMC work? The LMC is going to look for certain chemicals in samples of martian rocks and soils. These chemicals are only produced by living things so if we find them it means that there is or was life on Mars. Some of these chemicals can survive for long periods of time (like fossils) so we can also look for evidence of ancient life on Mars that has since died out.

This is what the ExoMars rover will look like. the rover will land on the surface of Mars and will carry a number of experiments including the LMC. The rover has a drill so it can collect samples from below the surface where it is possible that microbes could survive

I usually start my day with a cup of tea at my desk and plan out my labwork for the day before going up to the lab and getting started.

This photo shows me working in the lab doing a type of experiment called an ELISA, which stands for enzyme linked immunosorbant assay. There is a good article on Wikipedia which explains ELISAs if you are interested

This is our spotting robot, we use it to print very small patterns onto glass slides. These patterns are called microarrays and we can use them in our experiments to look for life on Mars

At the moment I’m doing a lot of work with Mars analogue samples – these are rocks and soils collected on Earth from locations that have similarities with Mars i.e. locations that are very cold and dry like the Atacama desert in Chile. I take these samples, crush them up and then test them to see how they interact with the LMC instrument.

Once my experiments are complete I sit down with the results and try to figure out what they mean. If I get stuck there are lots of people in my team who can help me out.

This is a picture from our Monday morning team meeting. You'll probably notice a few coffee cups on the table! Here I am talking about my work to the rest of the team

This is a picture of me working in a cleanroom. When you are building experiments and equipment to fly in space its really important that it is clean which is why we have to work in a cleanroom. Cleanrooms are designed to have no dust or other particles to protect experiments from being contaminated. It's really hot and uncomfortable underneath that suit!

Twice a week we have a team meeting where we all talk about our work to see how much progress we have made. Sometimes I might have to visit another university for a meeting or to use a piece of equipment.

Occasionally I get to travel to conferences to meet other scientists and share my work. My favourite days are when I’m involved in field work and I get to go to exciting places like the Swedish arctic circle.

In 2010 I was part of a team of students who designed, built and flew an experiment on a stratospheric balloon to look for life at the edge of space. More info, photos videos and blogs are available at www.cass-e.com. Take a look at the CASS-E project overview video on Youtube.

This is a picture of the balloon that carried our experiment up to the stratosphere to look for evidence of life in the cold and dry Mars like conditions on the edge of space

I would like to use the I’m a Scientist money to fund teams of school students to design and build their own experiments and then fly them on a small stratospheric balloon platform from the UK.

I think that this would be a great opportunity for teams of school students to find out what its like to be involved in a space mission from start to finish and to see their experiment launched to the edge of space.

This video shows you what the view is like from the stratosphere BEXUS flight.

This is a photo of me and some of the other scientists and engineers from team CASS-E. The photo was taken in the Swedish Arctic circle. It was very cold there - about minus 30 degrees centrigrade at night brrrrr!