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Posted by baalke on February 14, 2007, 12:57 pm
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Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Media Contacts: Audrey Huang
410-614-5105; audrey@jhmi.edu
Margaret Putney; mputney1@jhu.edu
February 14, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDICAL SCHOOL'S MASS SPEC EXPERTS AID SEARCH FOR LIFE ON MARS
--Device the size of a "shoebox" will be about right
Biomedical scientists at The Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine
have won a $750,000 NASA grant to design the prototype for a mini
mass
spectrometer that fits on a Mars Rover and can analyze the chemicals
of
life as it crawls over the Red Planet' dust.
Pharmacologist and molecular scientist Robert J. Cotter, Ph.D., says a
team
including specialists from Johns Hopkins' Applied Physics Laboratory
(APL)
and the University of California at Santa Barbara are designing the
tailored mass spec to probe Mars core samples for evidence of proteins
or
genetic information-carrying nucleic acids in a mission scheduled to
launch
in 2013.
"What a mass spectrometer can identify are chemical signatures of life
or
the building blocks of life that may have at some point existed on the
Red
Planet," says Cotter, a professor in the School of Medicine at Johns
Hopkins, who developed the design concept for the specific type of
mass
spectrometer, known as a low-voltage ion trap mass spectrometer, that
will
be used in this mission.
Mars, like Earth, is one of four so-called terrestrial planets with a
metal
core and rocky surface in Earth's solar system. Researchers hope that
by
studying Mars' past and present biological potential they can better
understand how life started on Earth as well as Mars' habitability.
The assignment is a natural for Cotter, who for almost 30 years at
Johns
Hopkins has been designing and improving mass spec's ability to
measure a
chemical's mass (size and weight). Every protein is composed of
chemicals
with a distinct "mass" profile, which can be used to deduce the
contents of
an unknown sample.
"Where once we had to use pure samples to get a reading, we are now
beginning to look at whole cells, which contain thousands of
different
proteins, and get a catalog of what's in the mix," says Cotter of how
mass
specs have improved.
While getting better, the tool has gotten smaller as well, he adds.
"Original versions were just so big and took up so much space that it
was
impossible to do much else in the lab," says Cotter, who adds that
the
components now can fit into a machine the size of a mini-fridge. For a
mass
spec to be able to sit on a Rover for travel via rocket all the way
to
Mars, Cotter and his team face the challenge of designing a new one
the
size of a shoebox.
"It's going to be tough, not only to miniaturize all the intricate
functions but to build the instrument to survive the harsh travel
conditions en route and the environmental conditions once it lands,"
says
Cotter. Mars is dusty, he says, which could interfere with fine
machinery
and circuitry.
True to his medical school base, Cotter's interest in mini mass specs
is
not limited to the search for Martian life. The devices hold promise
as
powerful diagnostic tools, he says, and may someday be used in the
clinic.
###
On the Web:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/mams/
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