India Stepping Up Space Life Sciences Push: Experts | Bengaluru News
Bengaluru: India’s space research priorities are expanding to include the chemistry of life’s origins and the biology of survival beyond Earth, experts said on Wednesday at the second Symposium on Genesis and Evolution of Organics in Space here.More than 70 scientists from India and abroad, including from Isro, Raman Research Institue, Institute of Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Physical Research Laboratory, IITs, IISERs, the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics and international institutes from France, Italy, Denmark, and the Netherlands, participated in the even held at GITAM (Deemed to be University), Bengaluru.They discussed how complex organic molecules, considered precursors to life, form and evolve in extraterrestrial environments.“This is just the beginning phase of understanding life… There’s a possibility for people from different domains to come together to seek, understand, and create the infrastructure to develop this across communities. It is very exciting for people to talk about alternate chemistries and methods by which life can be created,” former Isro chairman S Somanath, said.His predecessor, AS Kiran Kumar, echoed this view, saying events like this are significant in addressing different aspects of life and visualising the human desire to create life from non-life entities. We need to make a difference in the way we understand the universe.The symposium is part of the Organics in Space Initiative, which seeks to build collaborative research capacity in astrochemistry, planetary organics, and microbial biology in space. Participants discussed payload design for life-detection, catalytic processes in interstellar environments, and studies of biosignatures.Shivkumar Kalyanaraman, CEO of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), said: “India’s scientific ecosystem is evolving, and deep space research and life sciences must unite to address the challenges of exploration and sustainability. Events like this symposium help define national research priorities.”RRI director Prof Tarun Souradeep, added that bottom-up consortiums can work. “The LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) India project was proposed from an undefined consortium, yet that went through. It is heartening to see similar models developing here.” The symposium will generate draft proposals, collaborative white papers, and working groups.
