NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

For release: 06/01/04
Photo release #: 04-156

NASA researchers customize "lab-on-a-chip" technology to help protect future space explorers and detect life forms on Mars

Astronauts working in space on long-term missions or living in outposts on the Moon or Mars will need to detect deadly microbes quickly to stop them from spreading. Researchers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., are developing lab-on-a-chip technology that allows chemical and biological tests to be conduced on small glass plates with fluid channels. The chips will be lightweight so that they can be inserted in portable handheld devices. Crewmembers can use a syringe or a pressure-driven pump to place fluids in ports on the chip and move it through tiny fluid highways called microfluidic capillaries. Chemicals or fluids can be mixed, diluted, separated, and controlled using channels or electrical circuits embedded in the chip. Data collected in space can be sent directly from the handheld detector to a computer and then even back to Earth for analysis and processing. (NASA/MSFC) QuickTime animation, 3.75 MB

 

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