ACIR

ACIR is NASA-funded research group investigating the role of isotopologues

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Task 1

Task 2

 ​​Meteorites and Cosmochemistry : Characterize the isotopic fingerprints of abiotic chemical and physical processes that form organics in space and planetary environments.
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Task 3

Organics in Earth Fluids : Understand intramolecular patterns organic molecules created or altered in reducing fluids on Earth (i.e. hydrogen rich fluids at deep sea hydrothermal systems) with implications for organic synthesis on early Earth. 

​Task 5

Biochemicals : Establish a dataset of biochemical isotope patterns from simple to complex structures to characterize the metabolic characteristics and constraints underlying position-specific isotope patterns in biochemical building blocks

Task 7

​Ancient Life and Environments : Apply results of modern studies performed in other tasks to ancient hydrocarbon biomarkers to draw conclusions about past environments and ecologies.

Methane : Determine intramolecular isotopic patterns of methane produced by both abiotic and biotic formation mechanisms in different environmental conditions.
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Task 4

Organics, Ice, and Minerals : Constrain any isotopic effects associated with organic mineral interactions that are crucial to the formation and preservation of a diverse set of organic compounds.
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Task 6​

Predictive Models : Create computational models anchored by experimental work that predicts intramolecular isotope patterns for different chemical and physical processes. 
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Task 8

Analytical Capacity : ​Develop analytical techniques to foster improved precision, sensitivity, and molecular isolation capability needed to advance molecular isotope analyses, and to address  demands of future solar system exploration.