Barry DiGregorio
Barry E. DiGregorio is an American astrobiologist who has spent 10 years (1999-2009) as a Research Associate for the Cardiff Centre of Astrobiology at Cardiff University in Wales in the United Kingdom. In 2010 DiGregorio was made an Honorary Research Fellow for the Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology in the UK. DiGregorio’s scientific interests include the study of the geology, geobiology and history of the Great Lakes region in the United States and Canada. His other studies include rock varnish and ichnology. DiGregorio has authored two books, Mars The Living Planet (1997) and The Microbes of Mars (2011). Both of these books support the data and positive conclusions for microbial life on Mars published by Gilbert V. Levin and Patricia Ann Straat two members of the NASA 1976 Viking mission to Mars.
His published papers and magazine articles about microbial mediated manganese rock varnish coatings are well known in the astrobiology community and was first to publish in 2001 that rock varnish coatings on Mars could hold the key to whether there is evidence of a past or present biosphere. His latest paper with co-authors David H. Krinsley, Ronald I. Dorn, Josh Razink & Robert Fisher, “Mn-Fe-enhancing budding bacteria in century-old rock varnish, Erie Barge Canal, New York”, appears in the Journal of Geology, 2017, volume 125, p. 317–336] published by The University of Chicago (DOI: 10.1086/691147). The paper makes parallels between manganese oxide rock varnish coatings found on Earth and on Mars. In 2012 DiGregorio predicted before NASA's Curiosity rover landed, that it would find manganese oxide rock coatings on Mars. A finding the rover confirmed later on:
https://phys.org/news/2012-08-varnish-clues-life-mars.html
In 2015 the UK Space Agency endorsed a proposal (attached) sent to them by DiGregorio along with co-experimenters Gilbert V. Levin. Ronald I. Dorn a Professor of Geography of Arizona State University, in Tempe, Arizona, Giorgio Bianciardi a Researcher and Adjunct Professor at the Dept. of Medical Biotechnologies, at Siena University, Italy, and Robert Lodder, Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington Kentucky, to use the NASA Curiosity rover as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Participating Scientist Program to look for evidence of photosynthetic pigments inside freshly broken rocks by the rovers wheels. The proposal sought to use spectroscopic filters on the Mast Camera and abilities of the rovers MAHLI microscopic imager camera. Although the proposal was endorsed by the UK Space Agency and would have been funded by them, NASA rejected it.
Barry has also served as an astroenvironmental activist for over 12 years and is Director of ICAMSR an organization dedicated to raising concerns about sample return missions from Mars and international space laws pertaining to forward and back contamination of celestial bodies (www.icamsr.org).
Today Barry is retired and composes unique futuristic guitar synthesizer music. He has over 12 albums out.
