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About SOLID
SOLID (Signs Of LIfe Detector) is an antibody microarray-based instrument, designed and built for the detection and identification of biochemical compounds by in situ analysis of soil and liquid samples Parro et al., 2005. Our system include all the mechanisms, detectors and electronics needed to automatically operate and collect results from 18 independent sample analysis modules. Current version (SOLID V2) is a portable field tested instrument that uses a sandwich immunoassay for the detection of large molecular weight compounds (mostly biological polymers) and bacteria from the environment. Each of its 18 independent analysis modules contains a core biosensor which consists of an antibody array containing 200 different antibodies raised against different extremophile microorganisms, biochemical extracts from natural samples, conserved proteins, polysaccharides, etc.. The construction of a new version (SOLID V3), following the ESA's Life Marker Chip (LMC) specifications for ExoMars is under way.
