Dr. Jan Špaček is a senior research scientist based in Alachua, Florida, who works at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution. He is a molecular biologist, analytical chemist, and organic chemist with a focus on the study of life on Mars and the clouds of Venus. He is the inventor and lead designer of the Agnostic Life Finder (ALF) and manages the ALFA Mars group. Jan proposed a hypothesis about the organic carbon cycle in the atmosphere of Venus, which will be tested in the first private interplanetary mission in 2025. He is also involved in developing life detection devices, including ones to detect the coronavirus.
Jan has extensive research experience and has worked on analytical electrochemistry of modified and natural DNA at the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Central European Institute of Technology in the Czech Republic. He has also been a visiting researcher at several institutions including the Ege University in Izmir, Turkey, the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center in Aarhus, Denmark, the Department of NanoEngineering at the University of California, San Diego in San Diego, California, and the Oregon Center for Electrochemistry in Eugene, Oregon. Jan holds a Doctorate in Genomics and Proteomics and Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Molecular Biology and Genetics. Outside of science, Jan bicycled around the Baltic Sea and across the Australian continent, 7500 kilometers in all.
Co-author of primordialscoop.org