FfAME

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Our Team

FfAME Our Team Jan Spacek
Jan Spacek

Senior Scientist

Jan Spacek

Astrobiologist focused on agnostic life-detection on Mars and Venus’s cloud chemistry. Senior Scientist, FfAME; founder, president & CEO of ALFA Mars; founder & president of IMPRESS Spaceworks Co.
  • (386) 418-8085

Research Summary

I’m an astrobiologist focused on agnostic life-detection on Mars and the chemistry of Venus’s clouds. My Mars work aims to screen large quantities of ISRU-extracted mid-latitude ice for extant life before humans arrive. I lead development of the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF), which extracts and concentrates genetic polymers from water samples and enables sequence-agnostic detection for planetary-scale survey of Mars biosphere. In parallel, I’m advancing IMPRESS (International Mars Penetrator Ride-Share System), a mission to deliver a large swarm of kinetic penetrators to embed ~0.5–1 m into the near-subsurface and distribute biosignature, thermal, and geophysical measurements across thousands of sites. This mission will democratize access to Mars subsurface and inspire the new generation of scientists.

On Venus, I am interested in the "mysterious" UV–blue absorber. Our radiative-transfer model results are consistent with highly efficient organic absorbers, and we showed that large organic molecules can be produced under conditions of Venus's clouds. I contributed to development of the Autofluorescence Nephelometer, an instrument that will be delivered to Venus clouds to analyze the aerosol for presence of organic absorbers I proposed will exist there in 2021.

Earlier in my career I developed electroanalytical methods for nucleic acids and AEGIS components. I also co-founded Sparsek s.r.o., a company to develop and distribute COVID-19 test kits and instruments. We succeeded and brought both the test and machines through regulations to European market.

For up to date information visit: www.primordialscoop.org (science blog I contribute to), www.alfamars.org (the organization I founded).

Research Focus:
  • Astrobiology
  • Venusian Cloud Chemistry
  • Life Detection
  • Martian Biosphere
  • Development and Execution of Space Missions
Education:
  • BS in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic (2009)
  • MS in Molecular Biology and Genetics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic (2011)
  • PhD in Genomics and Proteomics, Masaryk University, Czech Republic (2018)

Publications

Nguyen, L. T., Macaluso, N. C., Pizzano, B. L., Cash, M. N., Spacek, J., Karasek, Jain, P. K., et. al. EBioMedicine, Lancet (2022) 77, 103926. DOI:10.1016/j.ebiom.2022.103926

Spacek, J. & Benner, S.A. Astrobiology (2022) 22, 8, DOI:10.1089/ast.2021.0070

Before the first humans depart for Mars in the next decade, hundreds of tons of martian water-ice must be harvested to produce propellant for the return vehicle, a process known as in situ resource utilization (ISRU). We describe here an instrument, the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF), that is an inexpensive life-detection add-on to ISRU. ALF exploits a well-supported view that informational genetic biopolymers in life in water must have two structural features: (1) Informational biopolymers must carry a repeating charge; they must be polyelectrolytes. (2) Their building blocks must fit into an aperiodic crystal structure; the building blocks must be size-shape regular. ALF exploits the first structural feature to extract polyelectrolytes from ?10 cubic meters of mined martian water by applying a voltage gradient perpendicularly to the water's flow. This gradient diverts polyelectrolytes from the flow toward their respective electrodes (polyanions to the anode, polycations to the cathode), where they are captured in cartridges before they encounter the electrodes. There, they can later be released to analyze their building blocks, for example, by mass spectrometry or nanopore. Upstream, martian cells holding martian informational polyelectrolytes are disrupted by ultrasound. To manage the (unknown) conductivity of the water due to the presence of salts, the mined water is preconditioned by electrodialysis using porous membranes. ALF uses only resources and technology that must already be available for ISRU. Thus, life detection is easily and inexpensively integrated into SpaceX or NASA ISRU missions.

Benner, S. A., & Spacek, J. LPI Contributions, LPI (2021) 2629, 4003.

Synthetic biology, physical organic chemistry, and other experimental sciences help assess here on Earth the probability of life in alien environments, and guide our search for it in observational and mission astronomy. These have given us "Agnostic Life Finders" (ALFs) for worlds where environments are similar to Earth's. However, they also guide a search for life in exotic environments. We will present by lab experiments showing organic processes that may support life in acidic Venusian clouds.

Hesko, O., Fojta, M., & Spacek, J. J. Electroanal. Chem, Elsevier (2021) 901, 115773. DOI: 10.1016/j.jelechem.2021.115773

Previously it has been shown that cyclic nucleoside monophosphates can spontaneously polymerize to form RNA oligonucleotides under conditions simulating prebiotic conditions on Archean Earth. The most efficient polymerization was documented with 3',5'-cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). In this work a method for fast detection of short polyG RNAs present in a large overabundance of cGMP, modeling conditions in the non-enzymatic nucleotide polymerization mixtures, is presented. The method is based on electrochemical measurements of guanine (G) oxidation signals yielded by RNA oligomers adsorbed onto the surface of a pyrolytic graphite electrode (PGE). To avoid false positive results arising from the G oxidation signals due to co-adsorbed cGMP, a method for selective removal of the monomers from the electrode surface has been devised. In the first step, both cGMP and RNAs are co-adsorbed onto the PGE surface. In the second step, the cGMP is selectively desorbed using treatments in solutions of different tested surfactants (SDS, Tween 20 or Triton X-100), or by washing in deionized water at elevated temperature. We show that this new approach is suitable for selective analysis of products of polymerization reactions from mixtures of their building blocks.

Spacek, J., & Fojta, M. Electrochimica acta, International Society of Electrochemistry (2020) 364, 137298. DOI: 10.1016/j.electacta.2020.137298

While standard Watson-Crick base pairing normally involves hydrogen bonds that join size complementary nitrogenous heterocycles, certain unnatural base pairs (UBP) can support replication, transcription, and translation, including these in semi-synthetic organisms (SSO), using size complementarity alone. In this paper we show that the UBPs can be analyzed electrochemically as components of ribo- or 2'-deoxyribonucleosides, corresponding (2'-deoxy)triphosphates, as well as incorporated into DNA. Here, performance of the electrochemical methods profits from the ability of the unnatural bases 5SICS and TPT3 adsorbed at the surface of a mercury electrode to catalyze hydrogen evolution in acidic media. This allows semi-quantitative detection of single UBP within plasmid DNA generated in a SSO. This electrochemical approach provides new way for direct, fast, and low cost UBP analysis and can supplement or replace currently used methods of UBP detection.
All My Publications