Garik Israelian — Armenian Scientist

Garik Israelian is an astrophysicist who led the team which found the first observational evidence that supernova explosions are responsible for the formation of stellar mass black holes... (wikipedia)

The one way to discover about aliens is to tune your radio telescope and listen to the signals.
There are many unidentified bands in the spectra of stars. Wide bands are produced by some complex molecules in the interstellar space.
Connection between life and radioactive nuclei is straightforward. No life without tectonic activity, without volcanic activity. And we know very well that geothermal energy is mostly produced by decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium.
It's not very fun to do spectroscopy.
When discs form around stars, there is interaction of angular momentum between disc, planets and parent star, and this interaction affects the rotation of the parent star, and that will affect the lithium abundance.