Prof. Rothschild is an astrobiologist/ synthetic biologist at NASA Ames specializing in molecular approaches to evolution, particularly in microbes, and the application of synthetic biology to NASA's mission. With a foundation in protistology and evolution, research interests include the early evolution of life, life in extreme environments and the search for life in the universe. In 2008 she established a program in synthetic biology for NASA and represented the Agency on the OSTP synthetic biology working group. Flight experience includes high altitude ballooning for astrobiology, the PI on the PowerCell payload on DLR’s Eu:CROPIS satellite (launched December 2018), and Co-I on ESA’s BIOMEX experiment on ISS. Extensive outreach including lectures worldwide, documentaries and a TEDx talk. She has been a NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) fellow five times. Teaching experience includes “Astrobiology and Space Exploration”, Stanford, 2004-13 (astrobiology.stanford.edu), directing theses (current Ph.D. students from Columbia, TU Delft, and UC Santa Cruz, ), and the faculty advisor of the award-winning Brown-Stanford iGEM team. iGEM projects included synthetic biology for Mars Exploration (2011), Synthetic biology for astrobiology, including biomining (2012), Synthetic biocommunication (2013), Towards a Biodegradable UAS (2014), BiOrigami (2015) for which the team won "Best Manufacturing", and "BioBalloon" (2016) for which the team won "Best Measurement" and runner up for "Best Manufacturing", “Mars: getting there and staying there” (2017), Stanford-Brown-RISD iGEM team, “Myco for Mars” (2018) for which the team was the runner up for the best new composite part and for best in manufacturing. In 2019 we joined forces wtih Princeton to form the Brown-Stanford-Princeton team, which won the iGEMers Prize. Prof. Rothschild supervises students both remotely and in her lab at NASA.
Rothschild LJ, Averesch NJH, Strychalski EA, Moser F, Glass JI, Cruz Perez R, Yekinni IO, Rothschild-Mancinelli B, Roberts Kingman GA, Wu F, Waeterschoot J, Ioannou IA, Jewett MC, Liu AP, Noireaux V, Sorenson C, Adamala KP. "Building Synthetic Cells─From the Technology Infrastructure to Cellular Entities." ACS Synthetic Biology, vol. 13, no. 4, 2024, pp. 974-997. |
Vora, Tiffany J., Averesch, Nils J. H., DeBenedictis, Erika A., Rothschild, Lynn J. "Space Synthetic Biology: A Paradigm for Sustainability on Earth and Beyond." New Space, 2024. |
Vallota-Eastman, Alec, Bui, Cynthia, Williams, Philip M., Valentine, David L., Loftus, David, Rothschild, Lynn. "Bacillus subtilis engineered for aerospace medicine: a platform for on-demand production of pharmaceutical peptides." Frontiers in Space Technologies, vol. 4, 2023. |
Lu, Brandon, Ohayon, Yoel P., Woloszyn, Karol, Yang, Chu-fan, Yoder, Jesse B., Rothschild, Lynn J., Wind, Shalom J., Hendrickson, Wayne A., Mao, Chengde, Seeman, Nadrian C., Canary, James W., Sha, Ruojie, Vecchioni, Simon. "Heterobimetallic Base Pair Programming in Designer 3D DNA Crystals." Journal of the American Chemical Society, vol. 145, no. 32, 2023, pp. 17945-17953. |
Reyes SG, Kuruma Y, Fujimi M, Yamazaki M, Eto S, Nishikawa S, Tamaki S, Kobayashi A, Mizuuchi R, Rothschild L, Ditzler M, Fujishima K. "PURE mRNA display and cDNA display provide rapid detection of core epitope motif via high‐throughput sequencing." Biotechnology and Bioengineering, 2021. |
Limaye SS, Mogul R, Baines KH, Bullock MA, Cockell C, Cutts JA, Gentry DM, Grinspoon DH, Head JW, Jessup KL, Kompanichenko V, Lee YJ, Mathies R, Milojevic T, Pertzborn RA, Rothschild L, Sasaki S, Schulze-Makuch D, Smith DJ, Way MJ. "Venus, an Astrobiology Target." Astrobiology, vol. 21, no. 10, 2021, pp. 1163-1185. |
Volger, R., Pettersson, G.M., Brouns, S.J.J., Rothschild, L.J., Cowley, A., Lehner, B.A.E. "Mining moon & mars with microbes: Biological approaches to extract iron from Lunar and Martian regolith." Planetary and Space Science, vol. 184, 2020, pp. 104850. |
Snyder JE, Walsh D, Carr PA, Rothschild LJ. "A Makerspace for Life Support Systems in Space." Trends in biotechnology, vol. 37, no. 11, 2019, pp. 1164-1174. |
Urbina J, Patil A, Fujishima K, Paulino-Lima IG, Saltikov C, Rothschild LJ. "A new approach to biomining: Bioengineering surfaces for metal recovery from aqueous solutions." Scientific reports, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, pp. 16422. |
Fujishima K, Wang KM, Palmer JA, Abe N, Nakahigashi K, Endy D, Rothschild LJ. "Author Correction: Reconstruction of cysteine biosynthesis using engineered cysteine-free enzymes." Scientific reports, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, pp. 6242. |
Ii KM, Kono N, Paulino-Lima IG, Tomita M, Rothschild LJ, Arakawa K. "Complete Genome Sequence of Arthrobacter sp. Strain MN05-02, a UV-Resistant Bacterium from a Manganese Deposit in the Sonoran Desert." Journal of genomics, vol. 7, 2019, pp. 18-25. |
Vecchioni S, Capece MC, Toomey E, Nguyen L, Ray A, Greenberg A, Fujishima K, Urbina J, Paulino-Lima IG, Pinheiro V, Shih J, Wessel G, Wind SJ, Rothschild L. "Construction and characterization of metal ion-containing DNA nanowires for synthetic biology and nanotechnology." Scientific reports, vol. 9, no. 1, 2019, pp. 6942. |
Lehner, B.A.E., Schlechten, J., Filosa, A., Canals Pou, A., Mazzotta, D.G., Spina, F., Teeney, L., Snyder, J., Tjon, S.Y., Meyer, A.S., Brouns, S.J.J., Cowley, A., Rothschild, L.J. "End-to-end mission design for microbial ISRU activities as preparation for a moon village." Acta Astronautica, vol. 162, 2019, pp. 216-226. |
de Vera JP, Alawi M, Backhaus T, Baqué M, Billi D, Böttger U, Berger T, Bohmeier M, Cockell C, Demets R, de la Torre Noetzel R, Edwards H, Elsaesser A, Fagliarone C, Fiedler A, Foing B, Foucher F, Fritz J, Hanke F, Herzog T, Horneck G, Hübers HW, Huwe B, Joshi J, Kozyrovska N, Kruchten M, Lasch P, Lee N, Leuko S, Leya T, Lorek A, Martínez-Frías J, Meessen J, Moritz S, Moeller R, Olsson-Francis K, Onofri S, Ott S, Pacelli C, Podolich O, Rabbow E, Reitz G, Rettberg P, Reva O, Rothschild L, Sancho LG, Schulze-Makuch D, Selbmann L, Serrano P, Szewzyk U, Verseux C, Wadsworth J, Wagner D, Westall F, Wolter D, Zucconi L. "Limits of Life and the Habitability of Mars: The ESA Space Experiment BIOMEX on the ISS." Astrobiology, vol. 19, no. 2, 2019, pp. 145-157. |
Averesch NJH, Rothschild LJ. "Metabolic engineering of Bacillus subtilis for production of para-aminobenzoic acid - unexpected importance of carbon source is an advantage for space application." Microbial Biotechnology, vol. 12, no. 4, 2019, pp. 703-714. |
Mosca C, Rothschild LJ, Napoli A, Ferré F, Pietrosanto M, Fagliarone C, Baqué M, Rabbow E, Rettberg P, Billi D. "Over-Expression of UV-Damage DNA Repair Genes and Ribonucleic Acid Persistence Contribute to the Resilience of Dried Biofilms of the Desert Cyanobacetrium Chroococcidiopsis Exposed to Mars-Like UV Flux and Long-Term Desiccation." Frontiers in microbiology, vol. 10, 2019, pp. 2312. |
Kofler N, Collins JP, Kuzma J, Marris E, Esvelt K, Nelson MP, Newhouse A, Rothschild LJ, Vigliotti VS, Semenov M, Jacobsen R, Dahlman JE, Prince S, Caccone A, Brown T, Schmitz OJ. "Editing nature: Local roots of global governance." Science, vol. 362, no. 6414, 2018, pp. 527-529. |
Fujishima, Kosuke, Wang, Kendrick M., Palmer, Jesse A., Abe, Nozomi, Nakahigashi, Kenji, Endy, Drew, Rothschild, Lynn J. "Reconstruction of cysteine biosynthesis using engineered cysteine-free enzymes." Scientific Reports, vol. 8, no. 1, 2018. |
Folliard, Thomas, Steel, Harrison, Prescott, Thomas P., Wadhams, George, Rothschild, Lynn J., Papachristodoulou, Antonis. "A Synthetic Recombinase-Based Feedback Loop Results in Robust Expression." ACS Synthetic Biology, vol. 6, no. 9, 2017, pp. 1663-1671. |
Folliard T, Mertins B, Steel H, Prescott TP, Newport T, Jones CW, Wadhams G, Bayer T, Armitage JP, Papachristodoulou A, Rothschild LJ. "Ribo-attenuators: novel elements for reliable and modular riboswitch engineering." Scientific reports, vol. 7, no. 1, 2017, pp. 4599. |
Emerson, Joanne B., Adams, Rachel I., Román, Clarisse M. Betancourt, Brooks, Brandon, Coil, David A., Dahlhausen, Katherine, Ganz, Holly H., Hartmann, Erica M., Hsu, Tiffany, Justice, Nicholas B., Paulino-Lima, Ivan G., Luongo, Julia C., Lymperopoulou, Despoina S., Gomez-Silvan, Cinta, Rothschild-Mancinelli, Brooke, Balk, Melike, Huttenhower, Curtis, Nocker, Andreas, Vaishampayan, Parag, Rothschild, Lynn J. "Schrödinger’s microbes: Tools for distinguishing the living from the dead in microbial ecosystems." Microbiome, vol. 5, no. 1, 2017. |
Toomey, Emily, Xu, Jimmy, Vecchioni, Simon, Rothschild, Lynn, Wind, Shalom, Fernandes, Gustavo E. "Comparison of Canonical versus Silver(I)-Mediated Base-Pairing on Single Molecule Conductance in Polycytosine dsDNA." J. Phys. Chem. C, vol. 120, no. 14, 2016, pp. 7804-7809. |
Holm Hansen AC, Paulino-Lima IG, Fujishima K, Rothschild LJ, Jensen PR. "Draft Genome Sequence of Hymenobacter sp. Strain AT01-02, Isolated from a Surface Soil Sample in the Atacama Desert, Chile." Genome Announcements, vol. 4, no. 1, 2016. |
Matsubara, Toshitaka, Fujishima, Kosuke, Saltikov, Chad W., Nakamura, Satoshi, Rothschild, Lynn J. "Earth analogues for past and future life on Mars: isolation of perchlorate resistant halophiles from Big Soda Lake." International Journal of Astrobiology, vol. 16, no. 03, 2016, pp. 218-228. |
Paulino-Lima IG, Fujishima K, Navarrete JU, Galante D, Rodrigues F, Azua-Bustos A, Rothschild LJ. "Extremely high UV-C radiation resistant microorganisms from desert environments with different manganese concentrations." Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology, vol. 163, 2016, pp. 327-36. |
Rothschild, L. J. "Synthetic biology meets bioprinting: enabling technologies for humans on Mars (and Earth)." Biochemical Society Transactions, vol. 44, no. 4, 2016, pp. 1158-1164. |
Fujishima, Kosuke, Venter, Chris, Wang, Kendrick, Ferreira, Raphael, Rothschild, Lynn J. "An overhang-based DNA block shuffling method for creating a customized random library." Scientific Reports, vol. 5, no. 1, 2015. |
Hegde, Siddharth, Paulino-Lima, Ivan G., Kent, Ryan, Kaltenegger, Lisa, Rothschild, Lynn. "Surface biosignatures of exo-Earths: Remote detection of extraterrestrial life." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 112, no. 13, 2015, pp. 3886-3891. |
Verseux, Cyprien, Baqué, Mickael, Lehto, Kirsi, de Vera, Jean-Pierre P., Rothschild, Lynn J., Billi, Daniela. "Sustainable life support on Mars – the potential roles of cyanobacteria." International Journal of Astrobiology, vol. 15, no. 01, 2015, pp. 65-92. |
Cumbers J, Rothschild LJ. "Salt tolerance and polyphyly in the cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis (Pleurocapsales)." Journal of phycology, vol. 50, no. 3, 2014, pp. 472-82. |
Horikawa, Daiki D., Cumbers, John, Sakakibara, Iori, Rogoff, Dana, Leuko, Stefan, Harnoto, Raechel, Arakawa, Kazuharu, Katayama, Toshiaki, Kunieda, Takekazu, Toyoda, Atsushi, Fujiyama, Asao, Rothschild, Lynn J. "Analysis of DNA Repair and Protection in the Tardigrade Ramazzottius varieornatus and Hypsibius dujardini after Exposure to UVC Radiation." PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 6, 2013, pp. e64793. |
Paulitsch-Fuchs AH, Fuchs EC, Wexler AD, Freund FT, Rothschild LJ, Cherukupally A, Euverink GJ. "Prokaryotic transport in electrohydrodynamic structures." Phys. Biol., vol. 9, no. 2, 2012, pp. 026006. |
Horikawa DD, Yamaguchi A, Sakashita T, Tanaka D, Hamada N, Yukuhiro F, Kuwahara H, Kunieda T, Watanabe M, Nakahara Y, Wada S, Funayama T, Katagiri C, Higashi S, Yokobori S, Kuwabara M, Rothschild LJ, Okuda T, Hashimoto H, Kobayashi Y. "Tolerance of anhydrobiotic eggs of the Tardigrade Ramazzottius varieornatus to extreme environments." Astrobiology, vol. 12, no. 4, 2012, pp. 283-9. |
Leuko S, Neilan BA, Burns BP, Walter MR, Rothschild LJ. "Molecular assessment of UVC radiation-induced DNA damage repair in the stromatolitic halophilic archaeon, Halococcus hamelinensis." Journal of photochemistry and photobiology. B, Biology, vol. 102, no. 2, 2011, pp. 140-5. |
Rothschild LJ. "A powerful toolkit for synthetic biology: Over 3.8 billion years of evolution." BioEssays : news and reviews in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, vol. 32, no. 4, 2010, pp. 304-13. |
Rothschild LJ. "Earth science: Life battered but unbowed." J. Geophys. Res., vol. 459, no. 7245, 2009, pp. 335-6. |
Rothschild, L. J. "The evolution of photosynthesis...again?." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, vol. 363, no. 1504, 2008, pp. 2787-2801. |
". A Re-appraisal of the Habitability of Planets Around M Dwarf Stars." vol. 7, 2007. |
Foster JS, Singh AK, Rothschild LJ, Sherman LA. "Growth-phase dependent differential gene expression in Synechocystis sp. strain PCC 6803 and regulation by a group 2 sigma factor." Archives of microbiology, vol. 187, no. 4, 2007, pp. 265-79. |
Rothschild LJ. "Introductory remarks: protozoology (protistology) at the dawn of the 21st century." The Journal of eukaryotic microbiology, vol. 51, no. 1, 2004, pp. 3-7. |
Schuerger AC, Mancinelli RL, Kern RG, Rothschild LJ, McKay CP. "Survival of endospores of Bacillus subtilis on spacecraft surfaces under simulated martian environments: implications for the forward contamination of Mars." Icarus, vol. 165, no. 2, 2003, pp. 253-76. |
"Life in extreme environments." Nature, 2001. |
Rothschild LJ, Cockell CS. "Radiation: microbial evolution, ecology, and relevance to mars missions." Mutation research, vol. 430, no. 2, 1999, pp. 281-91. |
Cockell CS, Rothschild LJ. "The effects of UV radiation A and B on diurnal variation in photosynthesis in three taxonomically and ecologically diverse microbial mats." Photochemistry and photobiology, vol. 69, no. 2, 1999, pp. 203-10. |
Rothschild LJ. "The influence of UV radiation on protistan evolution." The Journal of eukaryotic microbiology, vol. 46, no. 5, 1999, pp. 548-55. |
Rothschild LJ. "A "cryptic" microbial mat: a new model ecosystem for extant life on Mars." Advances in Space Research, vol. 15, no. 3, 1995, pp. 223-8. |
Rothschild LJ. "CO2 and diatom mats [letter]." J. Geophys. Res., vol. 368, 1994, pp. 817. |
Rothschild LJ. "Elevated CO2: impact on diurnal patterns of photosynthesis in natural microbial ecosystems." Advances in Space Research, vol. 14, no. 11, 1994, pp. 285-9. |
Rothschild LJ, Giver LJ, White MR, Mancinelli RL. "Metabolic activity of microorganisms in evaporites." Journal of phycology, vol. 30, no. 3, 1994, pp. 431-8. |
Rothschild LJ. "A model for diurnal patterns of carbon fixation in a Precambrian microbial mat based on a modern analog." Bio Systems, vol. 25, no. 1-2, 1991, pp. 13-23. |
Rothschild LJ. "Earth analogs for Martian life. Microbes in evaporites, a new model system for life on Mars." Icarus, vol. 88, 1990, pp. 246-60. |
Rothschild LJ, Mancinelli RL. "Model of carbon fixation in microbial mats from 3,500 Myr ago to the present." J. Geophys. Res., vol. 345, no. 6277, 1990, pp. 710-2. |
Rothschild LJ. "Protozoa, Protista, Protoctista: what's in a name?." Journal of the history of biology, vol. 22, no. 2, 1989, pp. 277-305. |
Rothschild LJ, DesMarais D. "Stable carbon isotope fractionation in the search for life on early Mars." Advances in Space Research, vol. 9, no. 6, 1989, pp. 159-65. |
Year | Degree | Institution |
---|---|---|
1985 | PhD | Brown University |
1981 | MA | Indiana University |
1978 | BS | Yale University |
2024 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) Fellow, NASA
2021 Presidential lecture, Phycological Society of America
2020 NASA Group Achievement Award, PowerCell on EuCROPIS
2020 NASA Ames Group Achievement Award, PowerCell on EuCROPIS
2020 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) Fellow, NASA
2019 NASA Ames Director’s Award for EuCROPIS mission
2019 TEDx talk posted on TED global.
2018 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) Fellow, NASA (mycotecture off planet))
2018 VanZant Endowed Lectureship sponsored by Rice Bioscience Graduate students (March)
2016 Gagliardi Family Distinguished Lecture, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI (25 Oct)
2016 Colston Symposium Public Lecture, Bristol, UK
2016 Lehigh University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Visiting Scholar
2016 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) Fellow, NASA (biomining)
2016 Vice-Chancellor Award Public Lecture, University of Southern Queensland, Australia (19 July)
2015 Horace Mann Medal, Brown University Graduate School
2015 Isaac Asimov Award, American Humanists Association
2013 NIAC (NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts) Fellow, NASA (bioprinting))
2012 CEO Award, Gen9 G-Prize
2010 Distinguished Planetary Science Lecture, University of Western Ontario (Canada)
2009 Tim Mutch Memorial Lecturer, Brown University
2005 Elected Corresponding Member, International Academy of Astronautics (Life Sciences)
2004 Elected Fellow, California Academy of Sciences
2004 Elected Fellow, The Explorer's Club
2004 NASA Outstanding Achievement Award
2002 Keynote Speaker, Vatican, and Windsor Castle
2002-3 President, Society of Protozoologists
2001 Auger Fellow, Hotchkiss School
2000 NASA Group Achievement Award, Astrobiology Team
1999 Elected Fellow, Linnean Society of London
1990, 1998 Jack N. Nielson Award, NASA Ames Research Center
1987-90 National Academy of Sciences NRC Research Associate
1987 National Research Council Fellowship, Canada (declined to accept NAS NRC)
1979 University Fellowship, Indiana University
Name | Title |
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Head, James | Louis and Elizabeth Scherck Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Geological Sciences, Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences (Research) |
Wessel, Gary | Professor of Biology |
Fellow, NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (5 times Phase I, 2 times Phase II, 1 time Phase III)
Fellow of the Linnean Society
Corresponding Member, International Academy of Astronautics (Life Sciences)
Fellow, California Academy of Sciences
Fellow, The Explorer's Club
member, Phycological Society of America
Honors thesis advisor, Brown
Directed reading, Brown
Masters and Ph.D. thesis advisor, Brown University
Faculty advisor, Brown-Stanford iGEM team (2011); Stanford-Brown (2012, 2015, 2016, 2017), Stanford-Brown-Spelman (2013), Stanford-Brown-RISD 2018, Brown-Stanford-Princeton 20019
"Astrobiology and Space Exploration" (Stanford University)
Directed reading in Advanced Topics in Evolution; Aerobiology (Stanford University)