Washington, D.C. “To detect life on Mars, we have to devise instruments to
recognize it and design them in such a way to get them to the Red Planet
most efficiently,” said Dr. Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution’s
Geophysical Laboratory, a member of an international team* designing
devices and techniques to find life on Mars. “We’ve passed a major
milestone. We successfully tested an integrated Mars life-detection
strategy for the first time and showed that if life on Mars resembles life
on Earth at all, we’ll be able to find even a single-cell,” he remarked.

Steele is part of the interdisciplinary, international Arctic Mars Analogue
Svalbard Expedition (AMASE) team, which is creating a sampling and analysis
strategy that could be used for future Mars missions where real-time
decision-making on the planet surface will be needed to search for signs of
life. Their two-stage strategy involves an initial analysis of the surface
to find good target sites and then subsequent collection and analysis
protocols to study the samples.

Because its geology is much like Mars, this year’s AMASE team just
completed a two-week fieldwork expedition in the challenging environment of
Bockfjorden on the Norwegian island of Svalbard, which at close to 80o N
has the world’s northern-most hot springs above sea level.

The AMASE team, led by Dr. Hans Amundsen of Physics of Geological Processes
(PGP), University of Oslo, Norway, deployed a suite of life-detection
instruments in the frigid Arctic environment, including two spectroscopic
instruments deployed by Dr. Pamela Conrad (of JPL and a Carnegie visiting
investigator), and Dr. Arthur Lane (of JPL). The instruments are highly
sensitive to certain organic and mineralogical markers, or fingerprints,
and have the capacity to identify local “hot spots,” which are likely to be
good targets for finding life. These instruments were tested on hot-spring
deposited carbonate terraces containing rock-dwelling (endolithic)
bacteria, and within lava conduits on the Sverrefjell volcano. This volcano
is currently the nearest terrestrial analogue to the processes that
produced features (Carbonate rosettes) that have been found in the Martian
meteorite ALH84001.

The Carnegie team** led by Dr. Steele, deployed a suite of specially
adapted off-the-shelf instruments to rapidly detect and characterize low
levels of microbiota. The results of the tests can be used for independent
validation, and to cross check among the instruments for greater
information than any instrument can yield on its own. Field analysis also
allows real-time understanding of the environment, thus permitting the
scientists to gather pertinent samples and test hypothesis with minimal
sample disturbance. The suite of instruments included standard genetic
techniques to identify and characterize bacterial populations (Polymerase
Chain Reaction or PCR); a highly sensitive instrument to detect cell wall
components (a PTS unit, which was developed by Charles River, and Norm
Wainwright of MBL); an instrument to measure cellular activity by analyzing
the flux of the energy-storing molecule ATP; and most significantly,
protein microarrays.

Protein microarrays are capable of testing for the presence of many
hundreds or even thousands of molecules simultaneously. These molecules are
not limited to large proteins or cellssmaller molecules i.e., amino acids
and nucleotides, the building blocks of life on Earth, can also be found.
The Carnegie team has pioneered the use of this technology, principally for
life-detection for Mars missions, and has recently been advocating its use
in astronaut health and environmental monitoring for long-duration human
space flight. “This expedition marks the first time these arrays have been
used in the field,” commented Dr. Jake Maule of Carnegie, who was
responsible for this aspect of the research. Initial results indicate that
the team was able to maintain sterile conditions and that the positive
results from the protein arrays correlate with PCR, PTS and ATP analysis,
as well as the spectroscopic techniques deployed by JPL.

Samples are currently being tested further in the Carnegie labs to verify
the field data, and additional expeditions are planned to refine the
strategy, technology, and remote operation over the next three years.

The long-term aim of the project is to fully characterize the geology and
biology of the Bockfjorden area, to understand the role of biology in the
formation and weathering of carbonate deposits that are the only known
terrestrial analogue to those found in Martian meteorites. This project
will also allow verification of sample acquisition and analysis in
simulations at Svalbard, and future missions to Mars and Europa.

*The AMASE Team comes from the following institutions: Physics of
Geological Processes, University of Oslo, Norway; The Carnegie Institution
of Washington, Geophysical Laboratory; the University of Leeds; Universidad
de Burgos, Spain; GEMOC, Macquarie University, Australia; NASA Jet
Propulsion Laboratory; LPI Lunar and Planetary Institute; and Penn State
University. The expedition photographer was Kjell Ove Storvik.

**Dr. Andrew Steele, Dr. Marilyn Fogel, Maia Schweitzer, Dr. Jake Maule,
and Dr. Jan Toporski

Funding for this project was provided by the Carnegie Institution, with
additional support from NASA AStep, JPL/ and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

The Carnegie Institution of Washington (www.CarnegieInstitution.org) has
been a pioneering force in basic scientific research since 1902. It is a
private, nonprofit organization with six research departments throughout
the U.S. Carnegie scientists are leaders in plant biology, developmental
biology, astronomy, materials science, global ecology, and Earth and
planetary science.

The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) is a distributed national
organization for research and training, which explores questions about the
origin, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. The
institute is composed of 16 teams involving more than 500 scientists,
educators, and students. It extends across the United States from Hawaii to
Massachusetts.

Contact Dr. Andrew Steele, at 202-478-8974, email a.steele@gl.ciw.edu;
Dr. Jake Maule, at 202-478-8989, j.maule@gl.ciw.edu; Dr. Hans Amundsen at
0047 90043976, email h.e.f.amundsen@fys.uio.no; or Dr. Pamela Conrad,
818-354-2114, conrad@jpl.nasa.gov

IMAGES available at http://homepage.mac.com/steelie/PhotoAlbum13.html