Finishing up with Master student Kiara Perez with: "Phospholipid Vesicle-Mineral Interactions in Alkaline Hydrothermal Vent Analogues Implications for Early Cellular Systems" and Post-Bac Shelby Lopez with: Selectivity of Vesicle Membrane Compositions Driven by pH and Salinity

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"

Following that is Master students Ilankuzhali Elavarasan with: "Simulating Surface Biosignature Evolution: UV-Ice-Salt Interaction in Layered Europa Analog Matrices" and Andrea Aldaba with: "Simulating the Surface Maturation of Exogenous Organic Material on Europa"

Next we have Doctoral student Mauricio Berazaluce presenting "Development of an Iron Nanoparticle-Based Sensor for Detecting Lunar Regolith Dust Contamination."

Next we had our postdocs Dr. Deepali Singh with her poster: "Simulating Mars: Do Organic Molecules Stand a Chance" and Dr. Mahendran Sithamparam with his oral talk: "Microfluidics in Prebiotic Fatty Acids Chemistry"

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."

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🎉🔬

Through VITAL, Dr. Camprubi will help develop AI-driven biodegradable sensors 🌱, mentor students, and lead early Mars analog studies ; linking Valley river systems to ancient Martian environments 🪐. Science that protects public health while advancing planetary research! 🔬

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.

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.

🎉 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. 🌍🧪