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Christie Tipton, junior biomedical engineering major, Nikhil Bhatnagar, junior aerospace engineering major, and Brannon Veal, junior electrical engineering major say Gig'em Aggies while aboard the "Weightless Wonder" during one of their eight zero-g parabolas in which they were testing their bilayer.

Vanna Keller, senior ocean engineering major, floats in zero gravity on the "Weightless Wonder" while testing SEI's experimental sensor with NASA.

Spaced out sensor

Aggie engineering students develop sensor technology that detects the smallest particle in space, even life on Mars

By: Melissa Appel

Posted: 9/5/08

Over the summer, a team of Aggies conducted an experiment aboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's "Weightless Wonder" that could have results important to future space travel to Mars.

The Space Engineering Institute (SEI) Materials Team is a group of students and faculty from the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine at Texas A&M. In October 2007, they submitted a proposal to NASA's Microgravity University regarding their experiment, "Analyte Detection via Protein Nanopores in a Microgravity Environment." The team began the design process of their experiment in the fall semester before receiving confirmation by NASA in December 2007 that their team could fly on the "Weightless Wonder."

Inspiration for the design of the experiment came from the patent technology of the single-molecule nanopore sensor chip, developed by Xiaofeng Kang and Allison Ficht, professors in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Medicine. Erin Bishop, a graduate student from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, led the student team in the experiment.

"The program of the SEI Materials Team is to work on a NASA-sponsored project in the development of the International Space Station," Kang said. "The purpose of the team is to design, fabricate, fly and evaluate the effects of gravity on a single-molecule nanopore sensor. This will lay a basement for the sensor as a space life exploration sensor."

Students on the team were Daniel Grimes, senior computer science major, Vanna Keller, senior ocean engineering major, Katy Westhoff, senior aerospace engineering major, Jahziel Chaviera, senior mechanical engineering major, Jennifer Kirchner, senior aerospace engineering major, Nikhil Bhatnagar, junior aerospace engineering major, Brannon Veal, junior electrical engineering major and Christie Tipton, junior biomedical engineering major. Faculty members selected the team from student workers at the Space Engineering Institute and specifically chose students from different disciplines.

"One of the most important lessons I learned was that of teamwork," Bhatnagar said. "Since we all vary by major and year, everyone had their own experience and you had to rely on that person to do a correct job the first time."

The experimental process was an in-depth series of months during which the team designed and tested the parts of their set-up. The most crucial part of the design was forming a bilayer around a Teflon tube that could withstand microgravity conditions. To insure its success, the team had to limit and remove any vibrations from the surroundings. The bilayer was then formed manually in flight.

The science may be too complicated for the common college student to totally wrap their mind around, the implications of this experiment are so vast that anyone can appreciate it.

"We aimed at comparing ground results to microgravity flight in preparation for the sensors to be used in space applications such as the Internal Space Station, Moon Base, or a Mars rover," Grimes said.

"The detector is the most sensitive ever invented," Tipton said. "All detectors up to this had to be calibrated for a specific molecule and could find no more. Ours can tell you whether something is an element, DNA, whatever. We have engineered a device that can be fed Martian soil and tell us if life was ever present."

The entire process of the experiment was incredibly time-consuming for all students and faculty involved. After the initial design phase in fall 2007, the spring semester was spent completing their design and finishing NASA paperwork for safety requirements. Flight week involved training for the students and a final review of all equipment by NASA engineers.

Finally, the official flight testing occurred June 12-13. Their flights took them through four sets of eight zero-g parabolas, during which their bilayer proved successful.

"The data collected during flight is very promising," Bhatnagar said. "It was able to function correctly, but is still being analyzed for comparison to ground-based data."

"The experiments made the research of lipid bilayer step from the ground into space," Kang said. "This also provides a good platform to study ion channel functions in the space station."

Though long and stressful, the student team quick to praise the project, as well as its effects and implications. To them, the effort was definitely worth it.

"The best part of working on this project is that nothing like this has ever been done before - that's why it's hard and it's a learning experience," Bhatnagar said. "You run into problems and need to figure it out. It's unique."