Scientists are looking more closely at the building blocks of life as we know it to try to identify which ingredients might also be the foundation for alien life beyond Earth.

Axar.az reports that researchers from Valparaiso University in Indiana have analyzed an assortment of amino acids, which are basic compounds that make the proteins to support life, to see how they might hold up to the harsh conditions on other worlds like Mars or Saturn's moon Enceladus. Their work represents a whole new approach to looking for alien life.

"Our main goal with this research is to see if there are structural characteristics of some amino acids that lead to a higher stability in extraterrestrial conditions and then to see what those characteristics might be," said Claire Mammoser, an undergraduate research assistant in the laboratory of Valparaiso chemistry professor Laura Rowe.

Mammoser is presenting the research Sunday during the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's Experimental Biology 2017 meeting in Chicago. She explains that while we know of the 20 natural amino acids such as lysine and tryptophan found in most biological organisms, there are also hundreds of known "unnatural" amino acids on Earth that aren't used by life forms we're familiar with.

"In a different extraterrestrial locale, the proteins in an organism would not necessarily be the same as that of an organism on Earth, so they might use amino acids that are known to us but not used to make proteins on Earth," she said.