Above: Joseph Bango (left), UB PhD student in Technology Management, and Patrick Conway (right), UB Medical Laboratory Sciences Laboratory Manager, showing their 越南直播 pride at the NASA Ames Research Center (Photo Credit: Joseph Bango).
December 2-6, 2019 were not exactly typical days at the office for UB PhD candidate Joseph Bango. He spent this time, along with UB聽Medical Laboratory Sciences聽Laboratory Manager Patrick Conway, at the NASA Ames Research Center testing instruments to search for alien life that may exist on one of Saturn鈥檚 moons, Enceladus.
This recent visit, however, was not a first for Bango: NASA has awarded his company, Connecticut Analytical Corporation, five contracts totaling just under 2.5 million dollars in funding, all part of this search for life beyond our planet.
So how did Bango get involved with NASA on this project?
It started with a probe sent to Saturn called the Cassini mission. During Cassini鈥檚 voyage, as Bango explains it, scientists noticed 鈥渁 funny glow around the moon. It turns out this was the visual effect of water jets spraying out into space from cracks in the surface of this moon.鈥� The source of the water is an ocean beneath Enceladus鈥� surface; it may also be a source of life, as indicated by proteins picked up by Cassini.
As a result of this observation, NASA is preparing for a 鈥渓ife finder鈥� mission that will send a probe to gather samples from the water to bring back and analyze. But there is a lot of preparation work before undertaking the mission, and one of these tasks is simulating Enceladus鈥� projecting ice grains here on planet Earth.
Enter Joseph Bango, who successfully proposed the solution: a hypervelocity ice gun that would mimic Enceladus鈥� water jets. The idea came from his years of working with the late Nobel laureate and Yale chemistry professor John Fenn, who developed a technology called electrospray, which Bango applied to design his ice gun.
But Bango didn鈥檛 stop there: he also proposed a method for identifying the microorganisms, potentially in the water jets, which does not require NASA to wait for physical samples to return to Earth. The method involves a technology called mass spectrometry, which measures the mass of molecules to identify them. Adding this technology to the probe headed to Enceladus will help NASA gather information about potential life well before physical samples return back to Earth. Bango is also developing a 鈥渄ecision-tree鈥� that will establish criteria for determining whether or not what they capture is, in fact, life.
Bango visited the Ames Research Center in December to test his proposed methods. Ultimately, when NASA sends out the probe, if extraterrestrial life is found, the first news of it may reach us through imaging generated by Bango鈥檚 approach.
He is not the only UB student involved in this effort. Under faculty adviser Ruba Deeb, director of聽biomedical research development聽and associate professor of聽biomedical engineering听补苍诲听technology management, Sophia Agostinelli, an MS student in biomedical engineering, and Makayla Maroney, an MBA student, are also collaborating with Bango.
Deeb, who fondly refers to Bango as 鈥渢he energizer bunny,鈥� said this project has 鈥渇ostered multidisciplinary collaboration in a remarkable way. It鈥檚 also a very positive learning experience and reinforcement for our students. Important projects are happening right here at UB.鈥�
Bango received his BS and MS in聽electrical engineering聽at UB and is also a Fellow in MIT鈥檚 Advanced Study Program. He is back at UB working on his聽PhD in technology management. His doctoral project also relates to identifying microorganisms (among other things), but it is focused on something quite literally more down-to-earth. For this project, Bango focuses on fighting the intentional release of viruses or bacteria into public spaces as an act of bioterrorism. Mass spectrometric measurements could more quickly determine the damaging compounds, in turn expediting an antidote.
He chose to pursue this PhD project at UB for a variety of reasons.
UB is unique in that students can work directly with faculty to pursue academic interests and develop new skill sets,鈥� Bango said. The technology management program permits people like him, well into their careers, to continue their work while pursuing a PhD. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really the only doctoral program of its kind in the Northeast,鈥� he explained.
Deeb said the technology management PhD is 鈥渁 highly sophisticated program that is very attractive to a group of entrepreneurs that are already very successful.鈥� As the CEO of Connecticut Analytical Corporation, Bango is an excellent example of the strengths and possibilities of this program.
Here at UB, one can pursue a PhD, run a company, fight bioterrorism, and search for alien lifeforms with NASA all at once.