Sandra Pizzarello
Professor and Research Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Arizona State University (USA). Her research spanning over thirty years has been devoted to the study of organic materials in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, with an emphasis on the molecular, isotopic, and chiral characterization of their soluble compounds. More recently, she has focused on the study of non-racemic amino acids from meteorites. She has published in journals including Science and PNAS, among others.

Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites are carbon-containing fragments of primitive asteroids that have offered the only samples available to date giving insights into chemical evolution in laboratory analyses. Their study has revealed that abundant organic chemistry came to be in the Solar System ahead of terrestrial life and, by the input of these meteorites and comets, might have aided in the origin of our planet’s biochemistry.
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