As a child Cara Magnabosco wanted to become a professional footballer. Then curiosity got the better of her and she decided to study science. Now the Zurich-based professor is searching for the origins of life – far below the earth’s surface. This content was published on August 21, 2022 – 10:00 August 21, 2022 – 10:00 Christian Raaflaub Radio, TV and online journalist. If you are traveling from the Nufenen Pass in the canton of Valais to the Ticino in southern Switzerland, you cannot miss the External link Finestra di Bedretto – the Bedretto window. However, hardly anyone notices this gateway to the mountain pass. The passage was originally excavated from the rock as an access route to the 15 km long Furka Base Tunnel. The tunnel accommodates vehicles going from east to west. This is also where Cara Magnabosco external link explores the origins of life in the universe, 1,500 meters below the earth’s surface. To do this, Magnabosco travels to Ticino every two months. Dressed in orange coveralls covered in reflective stripes and a hard hat, a life preserver (oxygen supply mask) strapped to her shoulders, the 33-year-old geobiologist looks like a street worker.
A video of Cara Magnabosco at work, deep in the earth and in her workshop in Zurich Whenever Magnabosco makes the two-kilometer journey horizontally up the mountain to reach the Bedretto Lab, an underground laboratory at the federal institute of technology ETH Zurich, he can rely on the oxygen equipment to re-emerge from the tunnel should there be an emergency . . The tunnel is cool and damp. It does not have a plaster finish. The roof and walls inside the Gotthard Massif are made of dark rock and the terrain is uneven. However, a good ventilation system prevents any musty smell you might expect to find here. On this Monday in May the tunnel is quiet. Just sparks flying farther – a work crew doing some welding. It is hard to imagine that the secret of life might be hidden somewhere in this tunnel of rock and water. The ‘BedrettoLab’ is located deep under the Pizzo Rotondo mountain in southern Switzerland. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina
Samples from the depths of the earth
One and a half kilometers below the Gotthard mountain range, Magnabosco is searching for the oldest signs of life on our planet. Here, in the bowels of the earth, she often sits for hours in dark areas with a microscope or prepares samples for her laboratory.
First he turns on a faucet fixed at a point in the tunnel where a stream of water flows. This is water that has been dripping into the rock for tens of thousands of years. He collects water samples and then scrapes a bit on the wet rock with a plastic tube to collect microbes.
“There could be thousands of microorganisms in that sample that have never seen the light of day,” he says. “It’s an exciting environment.”
Down here, he explains, life forms dating back to the earliest period of earth’s history have remained untouched by the processes taking place at the surface level. This is what makes them relevant to the search for the origin of life in the universe.
Most of Cara Magnabosco’s work takes place in her lab at ETH Zurich. swissinfo.ch / Christian Raaflaub
The ingredients for life
When I first meet Magnabosco in her office in the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich two months before our trip to Ticino, she shows me a young researcher award she has won. He carefully removes an ocher-colored stone from the mountains of Oman from an elaborately decorated paper box. “If I put it in water, we would have the most important ingredients for life – water and rock,” he says. When life actually begins is a controversial question among researchers. The answer depends on how you define life and who you ask: biologists, chemists, or philosophers. As an assistant professor of geobiology, Magnabosco explores the boundaries between living and non-living matter. “We’re trying to figure out where life can survive and where life is no longer capable of surviving,” she explains during a visit to the laboratory two floors above her office. There, together with her students, she studies the water samples they have collected in the Bedretto laboratory.
Science and adventure
Science was never Magnabosco’s only career choice. He grew up with an older sister in the American state of Indiana. He has a Thai mother and an American father. Her mother is an ophthalmologist. her father works in finance. As a child, Magnabosco wanted to become a professional footballer. Cara Magnabosco observes bacteria under an electron microscope. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina In her senior year of high school she took a course in biotechnology and became fascinated with DNA sequencing. “We took DNA from our cheeks and learned how it was sequenced and analyzed,” he says. “It was very nice”. Later she often returned to this method of analysis in her study of biology and in her own research. As part of their lesson, the students read Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston. This bestseller describes how, after the initial outbreaks in Africa, scientists traced the origins of the Ebola virus and decoded it. The blend of adventure and science that delighted Magnabosco back then still holds it today. Magnabosco recounts her numerous research trips to places such as the Spitzbergen Islands off the coast of Norway, Death Valley and hot springs in Portugal. As a PhD student at Princeton, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, she ventured into gold mines in South Africa, where huge elevators descend into the bowels of the earth at high speed. “Sh-shh-shh!” he says, miming the beat. In the same elevator, sometimes a huge truck also came down. In 2019 Magnabosco applied for an assistant professor position in geobiology at ETH Zurich. Her research area fits perfectly with the new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life, which opens in September External link (see box).
New ETH Zurich Center
The new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life is scheduled to open on September 2, 2022, at the federal institute of technology ETH Zurich. It will be one of the first interdisciplinary and interuniversity centers to study life across Europe. The center is headed by astronomer and Nobel laureate Didier Queloz. In 1995, together with another Swiss, Michel Mayor, Queloz discovered the first planet orbiting a sun-like star. These planets are called exoplanets. Queloz will also continue to conduct research at the University of Cambridge. Entry fee Magnabosco will work with a team that includes Swiss Nobel laureate Didier Queloz, who will lead the research center at two locations in and near Zurich. It is to be a multidisciplinary center, involving chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astrophysics and other disciplines. Magnabosco is specifically looking for microbes found at the beginning of life on earth, about two billion years ago. “It’s a kind of police work,” he says of his task of discovering how these living things evolved and influenced each other during the earth’s four and a half billion-year history.
Deep underground
Why does Magnabosco look for the origin of life underground on Earth and not on the surface of other planets where the sun also shines? To examine this question, we climb to the roof of the Department of Earth Sciences to look at the sky. “At least within our solar system, we know that many of the planetary surfaces are largely inhospitable,” he says. Deep underground, however, life forms are protected from the instability that can prevail on a planet’s surface. In Magnabosco’s view, it is possible for life to exist elsewhere, not just on Earth. “The general recipes for what we think are needed for life seem like they can appear on other planets,” he says. He hopes for some new knowledge from the James Webb telescope, which was recently launched into space to find exoplanets where life might exist. If there is life on other planets, “it is more likely that we will find life similar to microorganisms,” says Magnabosco. “And as we know from Earth, more microorganisms live underground than on the surface or in the oceans.”
What does life look like?
The underground lab in the tunnel in Bedretto Valley isn’t exactly a separate room but an extension of the passage. On one side are tables where measuring devices and computers sit. Several thick pipes disappear into a large pool of water. Magnabosco controls a few settings on a screen. Almost all values required for her research could be controlled from Zurich. “But we can’t open, close or sample the boreholes,” he explains. For this reason he plans a trip to Ticino every two months. Cara Magnabosco checks the settings of the different boreholes in the “BedrettoLab”, from which she and her students collect samples. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina In the search for life in the universe and here on Earth, many assumptions about life forms must be rejected. It is difficult, for example, to imagine living in boiling water. However, there are microbes that can live and reproduce at even higher temperatures than this. In 1966, in a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, microbiologist Thomas Brock found a bacterium that can live above the boiling point of water. Brock’s work led to the PCR test, which is now used to detect Covid-19 infections. During her college years, Magnabosco was fascinated by Brock. The late scientist, who died last year aged 94, was a role model for her, mainly because…
title: “Searching For The Origins Of Life Deep Underground " ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-24” author: “Clinton Cecilio”
As a child Cara Magnabosco wanted to become a professional footballer. Then curiosity got the better of her and she decided to study science. Now the Zurich-based professor is searching for the origins of life – far below the earth’s surface. This content was published on August 21, 2022 – 10:00 August 21, 2022 – 10:00 Christian Raaflaub Radio, TV and online journalist. If you are traveling from the Nufenen Pass in the canton of Valais to the Ticino in southern Switzerland, you cannot miss the External link Finestra di Bedretto – the Bedretto window. However, hardly anyone notices this gateway to the mountain pass. The passage was originally excavated from the rock as an access route to the 15 km long Furka Base Tunnel. The tunnel accommodates vehicles going from east to west. This is also where Cara Magnabosco external link explores the origins of life in the universe, 1,500 meters below the earth’s surface. To do this, Magnabosco travels to Ticino every two months. Dressed in orange coveralls covered in reflective stripes and a hard hat, a life preserver (oxygen supply mask) strapped to her shoulders, the 33-year-old geobiologist looks like a street worker.
A video of Cara Magnabosco at work, deep in the earth and in her workshop in Zurich Whenever Magnabosco makes the two-kilometer journey horizontally up the mountain to reach the Bedretto Lab, an underground laboratory at the federal institute of technology ETH Zurich, he can rely on the oxygen equipment to re-emerge from the tunnel should there be an emergency . . The tunnel is cool and damp. It does not have a plaster finish. The roof and walls inside the Gotthard Massif are made of dark rock and the terrain is uneven. However, a good ventilation system prevents any musty smell you might expect to find here. On this Monday in May the tunnel is quiet. Just sparks flying farther – a work crew doing some welding. It is hard to imagine that the secret of life might be hidden somewhere in this tunnel of rock and water. The ‘BedrettoLab’ is located deep under the Pizzo Rotondo mountain in southern Switzerland. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina
Samples from the depths of the earth
One and a half kilometers below the Gotthard mountain range, Magnabosco is searching for the oldest signs of life on our planet. Here, in the bowels of the earth, she often sits for hours in dark areas with a microscope or prepares samples for her laboratory.
First he turns on a faucet fixed at a point in the tunnel where a stream of water flows. This is water that has been dripping into the rock for tens of thousands of years. He collects water samples and then scrapes a bit on the wet rock with a plastic tube to collect microbes.
“There could be thousands of microorganisms in that sample that have never seen the light of day,” he says. “It’s an exciting environment.”
Down here, he explains, life forms dating back to the earliest period of earth’s history have remained untouched by the processes taking place at the surface level. This is what makes them relevant to the search for the origin of life in the universe.
Most of Cara Magnabosco’s work takes place in her lab at ETH Zurich. swissinfo.ch / Christian Raaflaub
The ingredients for life
When I first meet Magnabosco in her office in the Department of Earth Sciences at ETH Zurich two months before our trip to Ticino, she shows me a young researcher award she has won. He carefully removes an ocher-colored stone from the mountains of Oman from an elaborately decorated paper box. “If I put it in water, we would have the most important ingredients for life – water and rock,” he says. When life actually begins is a controversial question among researchers. The answer depends on how you define life and who you ask: biologists, chemists, or philosophers. As an assistant professor of geobiology, Magnabosco explores the boundaries between living and non-living matter. “We’re trying to figure out where life can survive and where life is no longer capable of surviving,” she explains during a visit to the laboratory two floors above her office. There, together with her students, she studies the water samples they have collected in the Bedretto laboratory.
Science and adventure
Science was never Magnabosco’s only career choice. He grew up with an older sister in the American state of Indiana. He has a Thai mother and an American father. Her mother is an ophthalmologist. her father works in finance. As a child, Magnabosco wanted to become a professional footballer. Cara Magnabosco observes bacteria under an electron microscope. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina In her senior year of high school she took a course in biotechnology and became fascinated with DNA sequencing. “We took DNA from our cheeks and learned how it was sequenced and analyzed,” he says. “It was very nice”. Later she often returned to this method of analysis in her study of biology and in her own research. As part of their lesson, the students read Hot Zone: The Terrifying True Story of the Origins of the Ebola Virus by Richard Preston. This bestseller describes how, after the initial outbreaks in Africa, scientists traced the origins of the Ebola virus and decoded it. The blend of adventure and science that delighted Magnabosco back then still holds it today. Magnabosco recounts her numerous research trips to places such as the Spitzbergen Islands off the coast of Norway, Death Valley and hot springs in Portugal. As a PhD student at Princeton, one of the most prestigious universities in the world, she ventured into gold mines in South Africa, where huge elevators descend into the bowels of the earth at high speed. “Sh-shh-shh!” he says, miming the beat. In the same elevator, sometimes a huge truck also came down. In 2019 Magnabosco applied for an assistant professor position in geobiology at ETH Zurich. Her research area fits perfectly with the new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life, which opens in September External link (see box).
New ETH Zurich Center
The new Center for the Origin and Prevalence of Life is scheduled to open on September 2, 2022, at the federal institute of technology ETH Zurich. It will be one of the first interdisciplinary and interuniversity centers to study life across Europe. The center is headed by astronomer and Nobel laureate Didier Queloz. In 1995, together with another Swiss, Michel Mayor, Queloz discovered the first planet orbiting a sun-like star. These planets are called exoplanets. Queloz will also continue to conduct research at the University of Cambridge. Entry fee Magnabosco will work with a team that includes Swiss Nobel laureate Didier Queloz, who will lead the research center at two locations in and near Zurich. It is to be a multidisciplinary center, involving chemistry, biology, earth sciences, astrophysics and other disciplines. Magnabosco is specifically looking for microbes found at the beginning of life on earth, about two billion years ago. “It’s a kind of police work,” he says of his task of discovering how these living things evolved and influenced each other during the earth’s four and a half billion-year history.
Deep underground
Why does Magnabosco look for the origin of life underground on Earth and not on the surface of other planets where the sun also shines? To examine this question, we climb to the roof of the Department of Earth Sciences to look at the sky. “At least within our solar system, we know that many of the planetary surfaces are largely inhospitable,” he says. Deep underground, however, life forms are protected from the instability that can prevail on a planet’s surface. In Magnabosco’s view, it is possible for life to exist elsewhere, not just on Earth. “The general recipes for what we think are needed for life seem like they can appear on other planets,” he says. He hopes for some new knowledge from the James Webb telescope, which was recently launched into space to find exoplanets where life might exist. If there is life on other planets, “it is more likely that we will find life similar to microorganisms,” says Magnabosco. “And as we know from Earth, more microorganisms live underground than on the surface or in the oceans.”
What does life look like?
The underground lab in the tunnel in Bedretto Valley isn’t exactly a separate room but an extension of the passage. On one side are tables where measuring devices and computers sit. Several thick pipes disappear into a large pool of water. Magnabosco controls a few settings on a screen. Almost all values required for her research could be controlled from Zurich. “But we can’t open, close or sample the boreholes,” he explains. For this reason he plans a trip to Ticino every two months. Cara Magnabosco checks the settings of the different boreholes in the “BedrettoLab”, from which she and her students collect samples. swissinfo.ch / Michele Andina In the search for life in the universe and here on Earth, many assumptions about life forms must be rejected. It is difficult, for example, to imagine living in boiling water. However, there are microbes that can live and reproduce at even higher temperatures than this. In 1966, in a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in the United States, microbiologist Thomas Brock found a bacterium that can live above the boiling point of water. Brock’s work led to the PCR test, which is now used to detect Covid-19 infections. During her college years, Magnabosco was fascinated by Brock. The late scientist, who died last year aged 94, was a role model for her, mainly because…
