McGill University
Development  of a Micro Nucleic Acids Extraction Platform for Biosignature Detection in Planetary  Exploration — PI: Dr. Lyle Whyte. Astrobiology  and the search for life in our solar system is a major focus for planetary  exploration. Current instruments used to detect biosignatures  remain high mass and large in size, and have high energy requirements. Such  instruments are not suited for missions to locations in deep space, for which  lander packages are likely to be tightly constrained. This project aims to  develop and optimize a deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA ) extraction platform in the  laboratory to be incorporated into  the prototype MICRO life detection platform with several low-mass, compact, low-cost  and low-energy instruments. The proposed extraction platform could be robotized  and integrated into future planetary exploration space missions.