Projects in Astrobiology
Due to the strongly interdisciplinary nature of astrobiology, the achievement of the objectives of the SIA depends fundamentally on the coordination and joint development of various scientific disciplines and relative research programs. The ISA, therefore, aims to integrate and share scientific knowledge.
OPPS - Life in Space
Origin, presence, persistence of life in space, from molecules to extremophiles. PI prof. Silvano Onofri, University of Tuscia (Viterbo). Project of the Italian Space Agency
LASSIE - Laboratory Astrochemical Surface Science in Europe
(PI Giovanni Strazzulla INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, gianni@oact.inaf.it)
FP7-PEOPLE-ITN-2008 Marie Curie Action: "Networks for Initial Training" (www.lassie.itn.eu)
The goal is the training of 28 early stage and 4 experienced researchers that work at one of the 13 research groups and 6 industrial partners. Research activity concerns chemical processes in different space environments from the interstellar medium to the solar system.
PSS (Photochemistry on the Space Station)
(PI Giovanni Strazzulla INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, gianni@oact.inaf.it)
It is an International project selected by the European Space Agency and funded by Italian Space Agency. Its goal is to expose several organic and biological materials (among which some produced in our laboratory) to space by using the international space station.
Icy worlds
(PI Giovanni Strazzulla INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Catania, gianni@oact.inaf.it)
It is a NASA project aimed at studying all of the physico/chemical processes relevant to the existence and maintenance of biospheres in the many objects in the solar system (and beyond?) that are rich in frozen gases (ices).
MAE Italia-USA 2010-2013
(PI Daniela Billi, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, billi@uniroma2.it) from desert to space (Chris McKay, NASA Ames).
ESA ILSRA AO2009
Biofilm Organisms Surfing Space (referent Daniela Billi, billi@uniroma2.it; BOSS PI P. Rettber, DLR Colonia)
BIOlogy and Mars Experiement
(referent Daniela Billi, billi@uniroma2.it; BIOMEX, PI, J.P. de Vera, DLR Berlino)
BOSS_Cyano e BIOMEX_Cyano
CNR-PNRA (PI Daniela Billi, Università degli Studi di Roma “Tor Vergata”, billi@uniroma2.it)
Extremophile cyanobacteria of sub-glacial Antarctic lakes (A. Wilmotte Liège, Belgium)
European Project EU- COST Action CM0703 entitled
“Systems Chemistry”, (PI Raffaele Saladino, Università della Tuscia, saladino@unitus.it ). Subject: The main objective of the Action is to investigate autocatalytic reaction sytems within supramolecular, prebiotic organic and other fields of chemistry and to develop methods for their integration into dynamic supersystems.