3/28/2001
EAST LANSING, Mich. - Scientists from Michigan State University have been tapped to become part of a NASA institute whose mission is to answer some of the most basic questions about life in the universe: How does life begin and evolve? Does life exist elsewhere in the universe? And, what is the future of life on Earth and beyond?
Using a $5 million grant from NASA, MSU will take the lead role in establishing the Center for Genomic and Evolutionary Studies on Microbial Life at Low Temperatures.
The center's role in what is known as the NASA Astrobiology Institute will be to study how the genetic mechanisms in microscopic forms of life, known as microbes, have evolved that allow them to inhabit cold inhospitable environments, a common feature of space, planets and interstellar objects.
Research will take advantage of bacteria that members of the research team have already isolated from the Arctic and Antarctic permafrost.
"Some of these organisms have been frozen for more than 3 million years," said Michael Thomashow, director of the center and MSU professor of Crop and Soil Sciences. "We're asking what unique mechanisms these microbes may have that allowed them to survive frozen for such a long period of time.
"In addition to shedding light on the environmental limits of life and providing possible 'signature' for life on other bodies such as Mars and Europa, a moon of Jupiter, our findings could have many potential practical applications, ranging from improving the stress tolerance of crops to producing pharmaceuticals more efficiently to understanding how these ancient cells resist aging," he said.
Besides MSU, other team members come from the University of Michigan, North Carolina State University, the University of California-Irvine, the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, the Russian Academy of Science and the Joint Genome Institute, one of the major centers that sequenced the human genome.
A major focus of the center will be to use high-capacity genome sequencing to determine all the genes microbes have and whether there are any unique genes that allow life to succeed at below-freezing temperatures.
Students also will be an integral part of the center, Thomashow said.
"Our educational objective is to provide in-depth training in structural and functional genomics, but to encompass that training in a context relevant to astrobiology," he said.
Among the goals are to establish an "area of specialization" in astrobiology, as well as the introduction of a new graduate level class "Genomics and Evolution of Environmental Stress Tolerance."
Other members of the MSU team include James Tiedje, director of MSU's Center for Microbial Ecology, who will serve as the center's associate director; Richard Lenski, Hannah Distinguished Professor of Crop and Soil Sciences; John McGrath, professor of Mechanical Engineering; and James Cole, assistant professor in the Center for Microbial Ecology.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute now has 13 member institutions. The other new institutions, in addition to MSU, are the University of Rhode Island, the University of Washington-Seattle and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.