NASA Sends DNA Sequencer To International Space Station To Detect Life Elsewhere In Space

NASA has reportedly sent a DNA sequencer on board a SpaceX Dragon cargo craft to the International Space Station (ISS). The DNA sequencer was sent into the orbit on Monday, July 18, along with other crew items.

Developed by UK-based Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the Biomolecule Sequencer has been designed to check if DNA sequencing is possible in microgravity, reported CNET. Usually, astronauts are required to send DNA samples back to Earth for sequencing. This process takes a couple of months.

What a DNA sequencer does is that it reveals the order of chemical building blocks along a strand of DNA. The same sequence contains the hereditary information which is passed from one generation of organisms to the next.

NASA is hoping that the DNA sequencer will help identify microbes, diagnose diseases, monitor health of the astronauts and possibly help detect DNA-based life on other planets including Mars.

The sequencer dubbed miniON, which is only about 9.5cm long and weighs 120 grams, is among one of the several items that will support more than 250 science and research investigations during the station's Expeditions 48 and 49.

"Each commercial resupply flight to the space station is a significant event. Everything, from the science to the spare hardware and crew supplies, is vital for sustaining our mission," Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS program manager, said in a statement.

"With equipment to enable novel experiments never attempted before in space, and an international docking adapter vital to the future of U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, we're thrilled this Dragon has successfully taken flight."

Sarah Wallace, a microbiologist at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, said that the device could help researchers conduct experiments on "extreme and bizarre" samples from space, reported Nature World News.

The scientists have great hopes for the potential use of the sequencer device once it gets outside the space station.