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Hello and welcome to the AstroBioChemistry lab Twitter. This is a UTRGV student-managed account under our amazing PI, Dr. Eloi Camprubi. We are excited to have an outlet where we can showcase our incredible lab members and their current achievements.
#UTRGV @Eloi_CC #astrobiology
Next we have Doctoral student Mauricio Berazaluce presenting "Development of an Iron Nanoparticle-Based Sensor for Detecting Lunar Regolith Dust Contamination."
After that is our undergraduate students Nolan Salinas with: "The Effect of Selective Pressures on Vesicle Membranes" and Dulce Castillo with: " Extraction and NMR Analysis of Organics in Europa-Analog Meteorite Simulants"
This past Friday, the ABC Lab presented all the wonderful work from our undergrads, graduate students, as well as our postdocs at the 2026 UTRGV STEM Research Conference. We would like to celebrate and share the work that all of our lab members successfully presented. #STEM🎉🔬
Kicking us off is our master's student Kaelyn Calma who was awarded the Best Poster Presentation for a Graduate Student in Chemistry. She was presenting "Thioesters as a Bridge Between Geochemistry and Metabolism: Evaluating Their Formation Under Prebiotic Conditions."
Big news from ABC Lab! UTRGV has received a $1.2M NASA grant to lead VITAL, a multi-institution project advancing climate prediction in the Rio Grande Valley 🌎Dr. Eloi Camprubi joins as Co-PI, integrating astrobiology, AI modeling & sustainable sensor tech to aid our community.
🎉 Starting our 2026 lab introductions, we are excited to welcome Mahendran to the ABC Lab as a Postdoctoral Fellow at UTRGV! 🔬 He studies how life may have begun, exploring protocells, vesicles, and how simple chemistry organizes into complex, evolving systems. 🌍🧪
Mahen trained as a chemical engineer at UCSI University and later completed his PhD at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), where he worked on prebiotic polymerization and the assembly of membrane less microdroplets, tiny systems that can do surprisingly life-like things.
Calling all planetary scientists, astrobiologists, and Mars explorers!
Dr. Singh will co-convene (with Subham Sarkar) Martian Evaporites: Windows into Ancient Climates and Cradles for Life (Session ID: P-PS10) at the JpGU-AGU Joint Meeting 2026 from 24–29 May 2026, Japan.
We invite abstracts on:
➡️ Evaporite-rich regions on Mars
➡️ Microbial/organic diversity in evaporitic systems
➡️ Organic-mineral interactions for biosignature preservation
➡️ Models of evaporites in volatile cycling and habitability
📅 Deadline: 17 February 2026 ⏰
👉 Abstract submission link: lnkd.in/guR7CJe4
search for P-PS10
#Mars #Astrobiology #Evaporites #JpGUAGU2026
We are proud of our ABC Lab undergraduates who presented their research at the 3rd Annual UTRGV School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences Undergraduate Symposium! 🧪🔬 Their hard work, curiosity, and dedication truly shined! 🎉
Representing our Vesicle team were Nolan Salinas and Shelby Lopez with their posters:
1/2: Synthesis/Assembly and Characterization of Vesicles: Insights to Prebiotic Chemistry.
We are very proud of their advances in the field of Astrobiology and Analytical Chemistry 🧪
📢 Call for Abstracts!
We’re excited to share that ABC Lab’s Deepali Singh will be co-convening a scientific session (with Subham Sarkar) at AbSciCon 2026. The NASA–AGU Astrobiology Science Conference is happening 17–22 May 2026! 🌍🔬
Session link: 🔗 lnkd.in/dniirMwK
Their session, “Evaporitic Minerals as Archives of Brine Evolution and Biosignatures Across Planetary Environments” (ID: 276291), explores Martian evaporites + Earth analogs to decode Mars’ past, assess biosignatures, and guide future astrobiology missions. 🪐🧪
We invite abstracts on:
(a) Martian evaporite-rich terrains
(b) Microbial + organic diversity in evaporites
(c) Evaporite–organic interactions
(d) Modeling volatile cycling + habitability
If your work fits, submit here 👉 lnkd.in/dfWNHpbB
📅 Deadline: 14 Jan






















