DNA spacewalk

Abstract

Every day, I (Prof. Joseph Borg) look inside human cells, aided by the state-of-the-art equipment we have at the University of Malta (UM). But I have always been interested in fundamental questions in science, like ‘How and when did life emerge on Earth?’, ‘How did our solar system and life evolve, and how will it develop in the future?’ and ‘Is there life on other celestial bodies?’ None of these can be answered by one discipline alone. It was February 2018 when I reached out to Prof. Kristian Zarb Adami, who directs the Institute of Space Sciences and Astronomy (UM). I told him that I was a molecular biologist with a slight inclination for astronomy. When we met, we found that we have more interests in common than the highly fragmented world of science often leads us to think. Research in our fields requires interaction and the exchange of ideas. Soon we were joined by astronomy PhD student Josef Borg, whose background was in Biology and Chemistry, maths and physics student Maria Aquilina, as well as applied biomedical student Leah Meekers.