NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI)

Groupement de Recherche en Exobiologie

Director of GDR
and NAI International Partner Contact
Frances Westall
westall@cnrs-orleans.fr

http://www.exobio.cnrs.fr/spip.php?rubrique1

The Groupement de Recherche en Exobiologie (GdRE), created by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in 1999, is a French federation of research laboratories working in Exo/Astrobiology. It is currently supported by CNRS, and CNES, the French Space Agency. It is composed of about 50 laboratories and includes a Scientific Council with 16 scientists from different fields of research.

Five main research topics are emphasized:

1) Terrestrial life as a reference (the primitive Earth environment; the first terrestrial living systems)

2) The origins of life on Earth (sources of organics on the primitive Earth; prebiotic chemistry; RNA world and other models of life)

3) Exobiology in the Solar System and the interstellar medium (search for life on Mars, on Europa, prebiotic chemistry on Titan, comets, meteorites and micro-meteorites; the chemistry of the interstellar medium traced back to the protostellar nebula)

4) Life in the universe (planetary diversity; criteria of habitability; spectral signatures of life)

5) The epistemological aspects of astrobiology are also included in these topics

The main goals of the GdRE are to promote Exo/Astrobiology in France, as well as at the international level, by helping and coordinating scientific research programs in selected domains of this field, optimizing the existing collaborations and inducing new ones.