BILLINGS -- A new astrobiology center at Montana State University could play a role in unlocking some of the most intriguing secrets of the universe, including where life came from and if life exists beyond Earth.

Earlier this year, MSU received a $6.5 million, five-year grant from NASA to create the Astrobiology and Biogeocatalysis Research Center.

The Montana Board of Regents is being asked to formally approve of the creation of the center at its meeting starting today in Bozeman.

The MSU center will be one of 16 units of the NASA Astrobiology Institute, said John Peters, a MSU professor of chemistry and biochemistry and the director of the new center.

The other units are at such elite institutions as the University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, NASA Ames Research Center and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Each center focuses on a different aspect of astrobiology, which is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe. Some centers are astronomy-based and are looking at planets that might have environments similar to Earth's.

The MSU center's focus will be studying physical and catalytic properties of iron-sulfide compounds found in both biological and geological realms. Catalytic properties relate to the ability to speed up a chemical process.

The adaptation of iron-sulfide compounds from a nonliving form into a living form may have been part of the development of life on Earth, according to the ABRC Web site.

Researchers also hope to create a model of how to think about iron sulfides and other minerals that could be used in detecting life on other planets.

Five of the center's researchers are at MSU, and three are at Temple University in Philadelphia or Stony Brook University in New York.

Some of the research that will be advanced by the NASA grant has been going on at MSU for several years, but the new center will enable a cohesive, multidisciplinary effort and relate it to the origin of life, Peters said.

The center will work with other research centers at MSU, including the Center for Bioinspired Nanomaterials and the Thermal Biology Institute, Peters said.

The TBI has been studying living organisms in hot springs in Yellowstone National Park. Thermal features such as hot springs are good mimics for early Earth, and researchers can learn the nature of minerals that might have been present when life began.

MSU students from undergraduate through post-doctoral programs would be involved in the center's research.

The center also would benefit communities throughout the state through outreach programs for seventh- and eighth-graders, teachers, museum staff members, park rangers and tribal colleges.

The new center not only creates opportunities for collaboration among researchers on campus but also allows Bozeman-based investigators to be part of a broader mission of astrobiology, Peters said.

Researchers from all NAI units meet regularly through video conferences and in face-to-face meetings.

The center is exciting for those directly involved and an example of how MSU has become a world-class research university, Peters said.

Most of the MSU investigators are in the new $23 million chemistry and biochemistry building that recently opened. The building was paid for through research funds with no direct cost to taxpayers.