[1] Sandford uses a combination of methods of using infrared astronomy and laboratory astrophysics to find "a number of new molecular species in space, many of interest to astrobiology".
His current studies in a laboratory are "of the physical, chemical, and stereoscopic properties of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons as well as the astrophysical ice analogs relevant to interstellar, cometary, and planetary environments".
[1] Sandford wrote that apples and oranges can be compared in the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research.
[3] Sandford, along with fellow NASA laboratory scientists Michael Nuevo and Christopher Materese at the Ames Research Center, worked to reproduce essential elements of RNA and DNA in 2015.
When they subjected common carbon and nitrogen molecules to radiation in conditions that are similar to those in outer space, three essential elements of RNA and DNA were created.