Orlando Santos
Space Scientist
Space science and astrobiology division
NASA Ames Research Center
United States of America
Biography
Orlando Santos is a space scientist and the Exobiology Branch Chief in the Space Science and Astrobiology Division at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. Dr. Santos was born in Havana, Cuba. He immigrated with his family to Florida as a young child. He attended Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida; received a Bachelor of Science in zoology from the University of Florida; and then a Master's degree in population genetics and a Doctorate in microbiology & immunology from the University of Miami. He then moved to the San Francisco bay area to complete his post-doctoral studies at a University of California, Berkeley cancer research institute. He pursued a career in the biotechnology industry where he helped pioneer monoclonal antibody-based cancer therapeutics, developed the first synthetic angiogenesis inhibitor, and worked on anti-HIV clinical drug trials
Research Interest
Dr. Santos' research interests include Planetary Protection, NASA's efforts to understand what Earth microbes might be inadvertently carried aboard spacecraft and confuse life detection efforts
Publications
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Adam R, Ade PA, Alves MI, Ashdown M, Aumont J, Baccigalupi C, Banday AJ, Barreiro RB, Bartolo N, Battaner E, Benabed K. Planck intermediate results-XLII. Large-scale Galactic magnetic fields. Astronomy & Astrophysics. 2016 Dec 1;596:A103.
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Drlica-Wagner A, Albert A, Bechtol K, Wood M, Strigari L, Baldini L, Essig R, Cohen-Tanugi J, Anderson B, Bellazzini R, Bloom ED. Search for gamma-ray emission from DES dwarf spheroidal galaxy candidates with Fermi-LAT data. The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 2015 Aug 4;809(1):L4.
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Nicholson WL, Ricco AJ, Agasid E, Beasley C, Diaz-Aguado M, Ehrenfreund P, Friedericks C, Ghassemieh S, Henschke M, Hines JW, Kitts C. The O/OREOS mission: first science data from the Space Environment Survivability of Living Organisms (SESLO) payload. Astrobiology. 2011 Dec 1;11(10):951-8.
