Centre for Synthetic Biology and the Bioeconomy

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'From extremophiles to Star Trek: the role of synthetic biology in NASA's missions’.

Talk by Prof Lynn Rothschild, 7th of April, 12:00 pm, Room 2.21 Beehive, Old Library Building

On April 7th at 12:00, we are hosting Professor Lynn Rothschild, Astrobiologist/Synthetic Biologist at NASA Ames and Adjunct Professor of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry at Brown University, here at Newcastle University (Room 2.21, Beehive, Old Library Building). 

Professor Rothschild will give a talk with the title 'From extremophiles to Star Trek: the role of synthetic biology in NASA's missions’.

Professor Lynn Rothschild is passionate about the evolution of life on Earth or elsewhere, while at the same time pioneering the use of synthetic biology to enable space exploration.  

 

Her research has focused on how life, particularly microbes, has evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. She founded and ran the first three Astrobiology Science Conferences (AbSciCon), was the founding co-editor of the International Journal of Astrobiology, and is the former director of the Astrobiology Strategic Analysis and Support Office for NASA. 

Astrobiology research includes examining a protein-based scenario for the origin of life, hunting for the most radiation resistant organisms, and determining signatures for life on extrasolar planets. More recently Rothschild has brought her creativity to the burgeoning field of synthetic biology, articulating a vision for the future of synthetic biology as an enabling technology for NASA’s missions, including human space exploration and astrobiology. Since 2011 she has been the faculty advisor of the award-winning Stanford-Brown iGEM team, which has pioneered the use of synthetic biology to accomplish NASA’s mission, particularly focusing on the human settlement of Mars, astrobiology and such innovative technologies as BioWires and making a biodegradable UAV (drone). Her lab will be begin to move these plans into space in the form of the PowerCell synthetic biology secondary payload on a DLR satellite, EuCROPIS, scheduled to launch in July 2017.She is a fellow of the Linnean Society of London, The California Academy of Sciences and the Explorer’s Club. In 2015 she was awarded the Isaac Asimov Award from the American Humanist Association, and was the recipient of the Horace Mann Award from Brown University.

 

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