On the 50th anniversary of Viking 1's landing on Mars, PI Merve Yeşilbaş was interviewed by Populär Astronomi on how our view of the Red Planet has changed — from imaginary canals to today's rovers, and the surprising lesson Viking taught us about Martian organics.

Congratulations to Melanie Aurelle on the successful defence of her bachelor thesis in the Yeşilbaş Lab! Her outstanding work on growing cyanobacteria on Mars-analog clays to search for biosignatures is becoming part of an upcoming co-authored paper with the group members!

The Yeşilbaş Lab was honored to host Dr. Janice Bishop (SETI Institute & NASA Ames) for a department seminar and research visit, marking the kickoff of our new Swedish National Space Agency funded project.

PI Merve Yeşilbaş was invited to speak at the Annual Meeting of the Swedish Chemical Society (Svenska Kemisamfundet). Her talk, "From Asteroids to Mars," traced how life's molecular building blocks are delivered across the Solar System and preserved under harsh planetary conditions.

PI Merve Yeşilbaş was invited to give a public outreach talk at Curiosum, Umeå University's science center, as part of the Curiosum Space series — sharing the search for life beyond Earth with a curious audience of all ages.

Students' choice! Our PI Merve Yeşilbaş has received the NTK Pedagogical Prize from the Umeå Student Union of Science and Technology. The students' own award, honoring her for inspiring engagement and bringing cutting-edge research into the chemistry classroom.

Our PI Merve Yeşilbaş is the Spring Profile of Populär Astronomi (No. 1, 2026)! The feature follows her journey from Istanbul to NASA to our Umeå "space lab," and the interdisciplinary team hunting for biosignatures on Mars.

The Yeşilbaş Lab showed up in force at the Swedish Space Researchers' Association (SRS) meeting with an invited astrobiology talk for postdoc Alef dos Santos and two posters spanning the group's search for life on Mars.

We are pleased to congratulate Surendra on receiving a travel grant from the LIFE, a NASA Research Coordination Network to attend the AbSciCon2026 conference!

We are proud to congratulate Alef on receiving a Seal of Excellence for his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship proposal, AstrOmics!

New Mars paper alert!! Our latest publication suggests that cold, acidic, Fe-rich clay environments may enhance the preservation of nucleobases and represent compelling targets for biosignature detection on Mars. The study was led by our Carl-Trygger postdoc Surendra and PI Merve.

A highly-prestigious Swedish National Space Agency (SNSA) research fund has been awarded to our PI Merve, strengthening international collaborations with NASA Johnson and NASA Ames Research Centers and SETI Institute, as well as Umeå University colleagues.

New Mars paper alert!! Our latest JACS Au publication uncovers how life can chemically reshape Martian minerals, creating detectable fingerprints of habitability. The study was led by our Kempe postdoc Alef and PI Merve as corresponding authors.

Our PI was recently interviewed by Jonas Enander for Forskning & Framsteg to share her insights on NASA’s exciting new discovery from Mars, revealed by the Perseverance rover.

We are honored to be recently featured in Umeå University news, where we talk about our current research directions and the kind of academic environment we are striving to build: curious, supportive, and ethically grounded.

New Mars paper in the Nature Communications revealed a new ferric hydroxysulfate mineral that can only exist under Mars conditions!!

Thanks to all my wonderful team members, especially grateful for the openness, trust, support, and thoughtful energy each of you brings to the lab!

Our PI Merve was interviewed about her recent research on gypsum transformations under Martian conditions that featured in Spectroscopy Magazine under “National Space Day” theme!

We are thrilled to welcome our new PhD student Zoe Asimaki into our team!

Congratulations to our Kempe postdoc fellow Dr. Santos for a wonderful interview that published in Umea University!