Rosie Redfield, the UBC microbiologist who has been one of the most vocal critics of the NASA-funded 'arsenic-life' study, has been named by the journal Nature as one of Ten People Who Mattered This Year.
On December 4 2010, Redfield blogged about the study published in Science. In the study, researchers funded by NASA claimed to have found bacteria that could incorporate arsenic into their DNA in place of phosphorus. If true, the finding showed that life could be supported by a form of biochemistry radically different from the one we know. But in her blog, Redfield said the paper didn’t "present ANY convincing evidence that arsenic has been incorporated into DNA."
Redfield kicked off a frenzy of criticism of the 'arsenic-life' paper in the blogosphere and the media. Redfield has also began attempting to replicate the work in her lab at UBC and is documenting her progress on her blog. The result has been a fascinating story of open science unfolding over the year.
Nature said Redfield: "Appeared like a shot out of the blogosphere: a wild-haired Canadian microbiologist with a propensity to say what was on her mind."
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