NASA grant to fund genetic studies

Dr. Niles Lehman has just been awarded a three-year, $400,000 grant from NASA to study the biochemical and genetic issues involved with the origins of life on Earth.

Lehman, and the four graduate students and select few undergraduates working with him, are interested in the advantages that recombination (the swapping of large blocks of genetic information) could have played during the beginning of life. His lab is investigating both of the benefits that recombination gives for the creation of new genetic diversity and the protection that recombination provides against the build-up of harmful mutations.

Lehman said he has a close relationship with the students he works with and he even plays in a dart league with some of his students. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of Molecular Evolution and is interested in the origins of life and early genetic systems. His projects have been supported by the National Science Foundation and NASA and often explore the deepest boundaries between chemistry and biology, Lehman said.

NASA only funds 15 percent of their total proposals, which are from universities and higher education facilities from all over the country. Lehman started his teaching career at California State University in Long Beach, where he taught for two years. After that, he taught at the University at Albany in New York for four years. Since 2001, he has been teaching at Portland State University in the chemistry department.