2020 Explorigins Colloquium Research Abstracts

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Presentations | Posters

A selection of permitted presenter titles and abstracts have been published below.

Plenary Speakers

Dr. Christopher E. Carr

The synthesis of complex organic molecules, including the building blocks of life as we know it, occurs in stellar nebulas, in reducing planetary atmospheres, and through aqueous reaction networks. To the extent that this chemistry is universal, life elsewhere may also utilize amino acids, and nucleic acids or related informational polymers (IPs) for information storage and heredity. Earth and Mars have exchanged an estimated billion tons of rock due to large meteorite impacts. If life exists on Mars, it could be related to us. Such an assumption is unlikely to hold for any life within Saturn’s moon Enceladus, or at Jupiter’s moon Europa. Here we describe progress towards life detection beyond Earth via single molecule sequencing of nucleic acids: a Search for Extra-Terrestrial Genomes (SETG). We also describe preliminary work to develop the Electronic Life-detection Instrument for Enceladus/Europa (ELIE), which would utilize nanogaps as a solid-state single molecule detector that is agnostic to the precise target chemical identity, extending detection capabilities from life as we know it to life as we don’t know it.

Dr. Mariel Borowitz

The field of astrobiology, with roots more than 100 years old, evolved quickly after the establishment of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). This talk explores how the evolution of the field was influenced not only by important developments in science and technology, but also by political and policy issues and decisions. It traces the development of the field over the last sixty years and ends with some discussion of new directions going forward.

Presentations

Dr. Micah Schiable — Chemistry and Biochemistry

The distribution of material throughout our Solar System can place strong constraints on the possible dynamical and thermal histories of small bodies. Only by obtaining a measurement of the large-scale compositional distribution in various regions of the Solar System can questions regarding the origins and history of many small bodies begin to be addressed. Additionally, having a means to rapidly characterize the elemental compositions of bodies could help identify valuable resources for exploration and in situ resource utilization purposes. The composition of bodies can only be loosely constrained using typical reflected light spectroscopy techniques. Although sample return is the best means of determine details of composition and formation conditions for bodies, it is costly, risky, and limited to a small number of sampling locations. A robust and sensitive technique for obtaining elemental composition of surfaces in high vacuum environments is the collection and analysis of secondary ions ejected due to solar wind and magnetosphere ion sputtering and meteorite impacts. First proposed for space based compositional analysis over 30 years ago [Managadze and Sagdeev, 1988; Johnson and Baragiola, 1991], this technique is commonly known in the laboratory as SIMS and can achieve excellent signal to noise ratios due to low ion backgrounds and high detection sensitivities achievable. Additionally, SIMS measurements at small bodies can help resolve whether these bodies harbor any potentially valuable resources for future exploration missions and how the composition of rocky asteroids varies throughout the Solar System.

Kelvin Smith — Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

My research focuses on the investigation of the relevant kinetic mechanisms of chiral depsipeptide polymerization and degradation. Once these depsipeptide mechanisms are identified, you can predict behavior of similar peptides used to create biopolymers for pharmaceutical purposes such as drug delivery and tissue engineering. The model provides helpful predictions for future synthesis of other depsipeptides, and it consists of a complex Kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) framework that simulates growth and degradation of chiral depsipeptides. To use the framework, rate constants of relevant mechanisms must be known a priori through either experimental data or a literary search. To investigate the kinetic mechanisms of ester reactions in depsipeptides, high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) data of two test molecules are collected and quantified at different pH values and temperatures: multiple oligomers of an HO-dipeptide called glycolic acid alanine (gA) and a methylated molecule of the gA dimer called propionic acid alanine glycolic acid alanine ((PA)AgA). I model and simulate the evolution and degradation of gA using MATLAB to extract rate constants. These degradation rate constants come from a novel model structure that describes two hypothesized mechanisms: scission and backbiting. I perform statistical procedures to determine how good the model fits are to the data, how likely one mechanism describes a model over another, and how confident we can be in the predicted values. Preliminary results show that both scission and backbiting rate constants of the gA oligomers and (PA)AgA follow an Arrhenius relationship and that backbiting is a dominant degradation mechanism at basic pH values in gA oligomers. When the rate constants were plotted against pH, similar behavior can be found in the literature.

Petar Penev — Biological Sciences

The ribosome’s common core connects all life back to a common ancestor and serves as a window to relationships among organisms. In eukaryotes, the common core contains expansion segments (ES’s) that vastly increase ribosomal RNA size. Supersized ES’s have not been observed previously in Bacteria or Archaea, and the origin of eukaryotic ES’s remains enigmatic. We discovered that the large subunit rRNA of Lokiarchaeota, the closest modern cell lineage to the last common ancestor of Archaea and Eukarya, bridges the gap in size between prokaryotic and eukaryotic rRNA. The long large subunit rRNA in Lokiarchaeota is largely due to the presence of two eukaryotic-like, supersized ES’s, ES9 and ES39, which are transcribed in situ. We applied computational models, covariation analysis, and chemical footprinting experiments to study the structure and evolution of Lokiarchaeota ES9 and ES39. We also defined the eukaryotic ES39 fold for comparison. We found that Lokiarchaeota and eukaryotic ES’s are structurally distinct: Lokiarchaeota ES39 has more and longer helices than the eukaryotic ES39 fold. Despite their structural differences, we found that Lokiarchaeota and eukaryotic ES’s originated from a common ancestor that was “primed” for evolution of larger and more complex rRNAs than those found in Bacteria and other archaea.

Dr. Anthony Burnetti

Phototrophy – the ability of a cell to capture light energy for metabolism – is responsible for the vast majority of biomass production and metabolic flux on Earth, and its origin represents an extremely important evolutionary transition. This capability has evolved independently exactly twice in Earth’s history, via chlorophototrophic and retinalophototrophic machinery. Close examination of the properties of these metabolic pathways reveals them to be remarkably complementary in their chemical makeup and ecological roles, suggesting that their properties are the result of ancient ecological interactions between incumbent and novel phototrophs filling initially vacant ecological niches rather than being the random results of rare, difficult innovations. Each origin of phototrophy has filled a particular niche in the tradeoff between efficiency per unit light and efficiency per unit protein infrastructure, and has suppressed the evolution of novel machineries like themselves while failing to suppress each other due to their fundamental architectural differences. As a “dual evolutionary singularity”, phototrophy can also be used as a touchstone to understand the dynamics of major evolutionary innovations and transitions in the history of life on Earth. Many innovations, such as the singular origin of eukaryotes or the origin of life itself, occurred exactly once and transformed the planet. Others, like the evolution of multicellularity, have occurred many times. This could be due to some innovations being intrinsically rare or difficult, or evolutionary singularities could be singular as a result of ecological interactions by first-movers suppressing innovation by other lineages. The example of phototrophy suggests that many of these singularities could be simpler to evolve than they seem, and could be common in other biospheres.

Aaron Pital

The pace of publication in the sciences has long since outstripped human ability to read and synthesize information. While interdisciplinary work can mitigate some of this burden, there remain fundamental questions about whether attentional blindness and the opportunity cost of reaching beyond the comfort of one’s expertise hold back innovation in speculative fields such as the origins of life. We present a brief model of associative information in scientific publication and propose tools derived from information theory, natural language processing, and data science to search for physical and chemical contexts embedded in literature from fields as diverse and non-traditional as soil science and drug design. The goals of these efforts are 1) to identify physical and chemical information of interest to origins of life researchers which would otherwise be unlikely to rise to the community’s attention and 2) to define rules for correlated information generally to improve literature cataloging, referencing and retrieval.
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2020 Explorigins Colloquium Poster Abstracts

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Presentations | Posters

Posters

Poster No. Name Poster Title Department Exploration or Origins?
1 Anna Simpson Landscape Ecology Applied to Astrobiology: Lessons learned from FELDSPAR Chemistry and Biochemistry Exploration
2 Bhanu Kumar Computation and Analysis of Invariant Tori Near Resonances in the Planar Elliptic Restricted Three-Body Problem Mathematics Exploration
3 Bridget Wiley VERNE: Thermal Management System Aerospace Engineering Exploration
4 Frances Bryson Initial Design & Considerations for the Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE) Sample Handling System Mechanical Engineering Exploration
5 Frances Bryson Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa: Initial Design of Vehicle Structures Mechanical Engineering Exploration
6 Kenneth Seaton Examining Organic Biomarker Survivability in Enceladus Plume Capture Conditions using Laser-Induced Projectile Impact Testing Chemistry and Biochemistry Exploration
7 Mohamed Nassif Drill Design Considerations for Use on Europa Aerospace Engineering Exploration
8 Philip Szot Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa – Systems Team Aerospace Engineering Exploration
9 Sara Pierson Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE): Communications and Data Handling Aerospace Engineering Exploration
10 Ashley Hanna Science System for Vertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE) Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Exploration/Origins
11 Abigail Johnson Potential Life Strategies in Gas Clathrates Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Origins
12 Ayanna Jones Utilizing Systems Analysis to Understand the Chemical Language of the Rhizosphere Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
13 Brooke Rothschild-Mancinelli Understanding Containment: Life Unbounded? Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
14 Jay Haynes Structure and Activity of the Ancestral Ribosome Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
15 Martin C Acylated Peptide Building Blocks Polymerize to Form Supramolecular Assemblies in Response to Environmental Cycling Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
16 Rebecca Guth-Metzler Probing ancestral ribosomal iron utilization through Fe2+ in-line cleavage Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
17 Tyler Roche Robust Ribonucleosides: A Pathway to Ribose from Simple Sugars via Ketose Intermediates Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
18 Vahab Rajaei Polymer Evolution using Alkyl Alcohols in the Absence of Water Chemistry and Biochemistry Origins
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2020 Explorigins Colloquium

Events
Colloquium Flyer

Dear Students, Staff, and Faculty,

On behalf of Georgia Tech Astrobiology and the ExplOrigins early career group, we invite you to join us for the 2020 Exploration and Origins Colloquium.
Please click HERE to register or submit a poster abstract.
The colloquium kicks off with a poster session on Monday January 27th, and continues with a day of plenary lectures, contributed talks, and a breakout networking session on Tuesday, January 28th. If you have any questions regarding the abstract submission process, please email the conference organizers at info.gt.astrob.colloq@gmail.com. Thank you for your consideration.

Schedule:

January 27th, 2020, MoSE 1st and 2nd Floor Atrium 
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM: Poster Session

January 28th, 2020, IBB Suddath Seminar Room
8:00 AM – 8:45 AM: Coffee and Poster Viewing
8:45 AM – 8:50 AM: Welcome from College of Sciences Dean Susan Lozier
8:50 AM – 9:00 AM: Exploration and Origins Colloquium Welcome
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Plenary 1
                                        Mariel Borowitz: 
Astrobiology: Science, Technology, Policy, and Politics
10:00 AM – 10:15 AM: Coffee Break
10:20 AM – 12:00 PM: Morning Session (Introduction: Tyler Roche)

      1. Kynan Hughson: Possible pingo analogs may populate Ceres
      2. Micah Schaible: In situ characterization of elemental compositions for small bodies throughout the Solar System
      3. Bradley Burcar: The impact of CO2 and cyanide in prebiotic environments on mineral formation and urea-based phosphorylation reactions
      4. Kelvin Smith: Mechanistic Investigation of Depsipeptides in the Early Earth Through Kinetic Monte Carlo Framework
      5. Petar Penev: Eukaryotic-like ribosomal RNA region in Lokiarchaeota

12:00 PM – 1:00 PM: Lunch (MoSE 1st and 2nd floor atrium)
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM: Plenary 2 —
                                     Christopher Carr: A Direct Search for Life As We Know It and Don’t Know It
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM: Afternoon Session 1 (Introduction: Taylor Plattner)

      1. Nadia Szeinbaum: Synthetic microbial consortia to explore cooperation on early Earth
      2. Anthony Burnetti:The dual origins of phototrophy and major evolutionary transitions.
      3. Devon Cole: Stability of atmospheric oxygen levels and ocean ventilation

3:00 – 3:15 PM: Coffee Break
3:15 – 5:00 PM: Afternoon Session 2 (Introduction: Chase Chivers)

      1. Philip SzotVertical Entry Robot for Navigating Europa (VERNE) Mission and System Design
      2. Loren Dean Williams: Polymers versus Metabolism
      3. Adriana Lozoya Colinas: DNA replication facilitated by a prebiotic solvent
      4. Aaron Pital: Semantic mining of chemical origins from non-chemistry disciplines

5:00-6:00: Networking breakout session

Plenary Speakers

Mariel Borowitz


Assistant Professor, Sam Nunn School of International Affairs,
Georgia Institute of Technology

Astrobiology: Science, Technology, Policy, and Politics

Mariel Borowitz is an Assistant Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. Her research deals with international space policy issues, including international cooperation in Earth observing satellites and satellite data sharing policies. She also focuses on strategy and developments in space security and space situational awareness. Dr. Borowitz earned a PhD in Public Policy at the University of Maryland and a Masters degree in International Science and Technology Policy from the George Washington University. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr. Borowitz completed a detail as a policy analyst for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC from 2016 to 2018. Her book, “Open Space: The Global Effort for Open Access to Environmental Satellite Data,” was published by MIT Press in 2017.

Christopher E. Carr


Research Scientist, MIT
Research Fellow, MGH

A Direct Search for Life As We Know It and Don’t Know It

Christopher E. Carr is an engineer/scientist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He serves as the Science PI or PI for several life detection instrument and/or astrobiology projects. He is broadly interested in searching for and expanding the presence of life beyond Earth while enabling a sustainable human future. He is currently a Research Scientist at MIT in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, and a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital in the Department of Molecular Biology. He also serves as a Scott M. Johnson Fellow in the U.S. Japan Leadership Program. This summer he will join the Georgia Tech faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Daniel Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, with a secondary appointment in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.

2020 Exploration and Origins Colloquium:

This interdisciplinary colloquium will highlight space exploration science and origins research going on at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as well as neighboring universities. The goals of the colloquium are to forge relationships between diverse individuals, encourage collaboration and interdisciplinary understanding, and kick-start future fundable projects requiring the skills and expertise of multi-lab teams.

  As previously, the colloquium will be roughly split into two sections: Exploration and Origins. While outlines of the two sections are provided below, the scope of abstracts considered will be broad. Past submissions have been from the departments of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Chemistry & Biochemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics, and multiple engineering departments.  We emphasize that all interested parties are welcome regardless of discipline or affiliation.  Exploration: For the Exploration session, we are particularly interested in submissions that deal with any and all aspects of reaching beyond to explore the nature of diverse environments. Examples include space technology development, spacecraft mission design, planetary science modeling, biological or ecological fieldwork and direct observations of extrasolar systems; in short, exploring what is  ‘out there’, wherever ‘there’ is. Origins: Submissions for the Origins session are encouraged to include some aspect of reaching back to understand the nature of the world today. Examples include cosmology and the origins of life itself, the emergence of multicellularity, the evolution  of  minerals, complex chemistry, atmospheres, and biological molecules or processes, and the formation of  planetary systems; basically, how did we get here?
Abstract Pages:

The pages linked here contain a selection of abstracts from our submitting attendees.

Presentations | Posters

Poster Guidelines:

The poster boards we will be using have dimensions 36″ by 42″. You may choose to set your poster up in a portrait or landscape orientation.

The organizing committee:

Aaron Pital (Graduate Student, Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Chase Chivers (Graduate Student, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) 
Christina Buffo (Graduate Student, Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Tyler Roche (Graduate Student, Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Rebecca Guth-Metzler (Graduate Student, Chemistry and Biochemistry)
Taylor Plattner (Graduate Student, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences)
Micah Schaible (Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemistry and Biochemistry)

Funding and Support:

We are grateful for the funding and support provided by CSTAR, GT Conference Support, the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and Frank Rosenzweig (NAI, CAN-7)