In the News

Eugene Levy Elected to NSBRI Board
Eugene H. Levy, the Howard R. Hughes Provost and professor of physics and astronomy at Rice, has been elected to the board of directors for the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI).

The NSBRI, funded by NASA, is a consortium of institutions led by Baylor College of Medicine that studies the health risks related to long-duration spaceflight such as radiation exposure, bone and muscle loss, cardiovascular changes, immune alterations, infection, balance problems, sleep disturbances, nutrition requirements, fitness, rehabilitation, remote-medical treatment systems, and neurobehavioral and psychosocial factors. The institute’s research and education program takes place at more than 70 institutions across the United States. Rice University is a consortium member.

Levy’s research has focused in the areas of theoretical cosmic physics. His work encompasses areas of planetary geophysics, magnetohydrodynamics, solar and space physics, and electrodynamics. He has been a member of a number of working groups and advisory committees for NASA and the National Academy of Sciences. For nearly 10 years, he served as leader and principal investigator of the Astrometric Imaging Telescope Project, a spacecraft design project established to develop methods of instrumentation and design for the purpose of discovering and studying planetary systems around other stars. He also established and served as director of the NASA/Arizona Space Grant College Consortium, which fosters educational and research opportunities for students.

Chapman Sees Ripple Effect of His Fluid Theory
Chemical engineering professor Walter Chapman had the rare honor of attending a conference in December that was dedicated entirely to an area of study he helped establish over the past 15 years.

Chapman first described Statistical Associating Fluid Theory (SAFT) in 1988, and the approach has since been adopted by dozens of academic and industrial research groups worldwide.

SAFT is a set of equations that allows chemists, chemical engineers, physicists, and others to make very precise predictions about the behavior of liquid solutions of solvents and polymers. Polymers are of central importance to the chemical industry because they are a primary product used in plastics, foams, synthetic fibers, and films. Prior to the development of SAFT, finding the optimal conditions for processing specific types of polymers involved a great deal of expensive experimentation. Like chefs trying out new recipes, chemical engineers would vary ingredients, temperatures, and pressures to see what methods worked best. SAFT allows companies to optimize many processes, leading to significant savings in energy and raw materials as well as a reduction of by-products.

The SAFT03 Symposium, held in Barcelona, explored the latest work under way around the world to further develop SAFT. About 40 scientists attended. Among the most gratifying new work is that of physicists and engineers who are using SAFT to conduct basic rather than applied research. “Applications of SAFT now range from polymer processing to predicting molecular structure and properties of fluids in nanomaterials,” Chapman said. “I came away with a greater appreciation of how far you can stretch the theory, and I hope others did too.”

Halas, West Awarded “Best Discovery”
Rice University nanoscale science and engineering researchers Naomi Halas and Jennifer West have been awarded “Best Discovery of 2003” by Nanotechnology Now, the world’s leading nanotechnology news and information site. “The ‘Best of 2003’ represent a small fraction of the tens of thousands of participants in the field of nanotechnology,” says Nanotechnology Now editor Rocky Rawstern.

Halas, the Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry, and West, associate professor in bioengineering and chemical engineering, were honored for their groundbreaking work to develop a cancer therapy based on metallic nanoshells. Clinical trials have yet to begin for a nanoshell-based cancer therapy, but Halas and West’s preliminary work on the therapy was recognized in July 2003 by the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Breast Cancer Research Program. The program presented Halas its Innovator Award, complete with a $3 million, four-year grant.

Invented by Halas in 1998, nanoshells are a new class of multilayered nanoscale particle that have unique optical properties controlled by the thickness and composition of their constituent layers—a sphere of glass at the center surrounded by a coating of gold. Just 100 nanometers in diameter, nanoshells are about 20 times smaller than a red blood cell.

By varying the relative size of the glass core and thickness of the gold shell layer, researchers can “tune” nanoshells to respond to different wavelengths of light. For biomedical applications, nanoshells can be designed and fabricated to specifically absorb near-infrared light. A region of the spectrum just beyond the visible range, near-infrared light is optimal for medical imaging and treatment because it passes harmlessly through soft tissue.

By injecting gold nanoshells into or next to tumor cells and shining near-infrared light on them, the researchers can generate enough localized heat to burst the walls of the cells without affecting nearby healthy tissue.

Kolomeisky Named Sloan Fellow
Anatoly Kolomeisky, assistant professor of chemistry, has been named a 2004 Sloan Research Fellow. Awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the fellowship is intended to enhance the careers of the nation’s best young faculty members who show exceptional promise to contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

Currently, 116 fellowships are awarded annually in seven fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, and physics. The Sloan Research Fellowship carries with it a grant of $40,000, which may be used in a largely unrestricted manner so fellows are free to pursue whatever lines of research are of most interest to them.

Kolomeisky’s area of research is generalized theoretical statistical mechanical methods of complex phenomena and theoretical biophysics. He joins more than 20 Rice faculty who have earned Sloan Fellowships, including Nobel laureates
Robert Curl and Richard Smalley.

Liebschner a Sound Winner
Rice bioengineer Michael Liebschner has been named the grand-prize winner in the Create The Future design contest sponsored by NASA Tech Briefs magazine, Emhart Teknologies, and SolidWorks Corp.

Liebschner, assistant professor of bioengineering, won the contest for designing the OsteoSonic, a noninvasive damage-detection system that will help doctors better diagnose bone fractures and bone loss that result from osteoporosis. As the grand-prize winner, Liebschner wins either $20,000 cash or a Toyota Prius hybrid automobile.

The contest attracted more than 1,100 entries from engineering professionals, students, and the general public from more than 30 countries. The OsteoSonic and other winning inventions were featured in a special supplemental issue of NASA Tech Briefs in April.

“The competition for this award was tremendous, so I am extremely honored to have been selected the grand-prize winner,” said Liebschner, director of Rice’s Computational and Experimental Biomechanics Laboratory. “This award reflects well on all of the talented students and researchers who are working on translational research in the bioengineering and bioscience field at Rice.”

Liebschner’s device uses acoustic waves to measure the structural integrity of bone. This offers advantages over existing radiological diagnostics that are used to measure bone density because it measures the actual structural integrity of the bone rather than a two-dimensional cross section of the bone density. Testing of the system is currently under way at Rice.

In partnership with Liebschner, John Osborne, an MBA student at Rice’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, is in the process of establishing a startup company to develop the OsteoSonic. Production of a prototype is expected within a year, and mass production is expected in two to five years.

Smalley Receives Small Times Lifetime Achievement Award
Rice University Professor Richard Smalley has received the 2003 Small Times magazine Best of Small Tech Lifetime Achievement Award for his efforts to advance nanotechnology through scientific research, commercial application, and public outreach. The awards recognize the best people, products, and companies in nanotechnology, microsystems, and mechanical engineering and materials science.

“Rick Smalley is advancing small tech on several fronts—through his research, as the founder of a nanotech company and as one of nanotechnology’s most active advocates,” said Steve Crosby, president and publisher of Small Times Media. “His prominence as a Nobel laureate gave nanotechnology credence in its early years, and he continues to be one of its strongest supporters. He works with everyone—the public, the press, politicians, academics, and business leaders—to advance the science, technology, and commercial possibilities.”

Smalley is University Professor, the Gene and Norman Hackerman Professor of Chemistry, and professor of physics at Rice. He holds the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the co-discovery of fullerenes, a family of carbon molecules that includes buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders of carbon atoms that conduct electricity as efficiently as copper and have 100 times the strength of steel at one-sixth the weight. As the director of Rice’s Carbon Nanotechnology Laboratory, Smalley’s current research focuses on how to most effectively and efficiently produce, process, and use nanotubes.

Talwani to Lead Multinational Ocean-Drilling Effort
The board of governors of IODP Management International, Inc. (IMI) has named Rice University geoscientist Manik Talwani as the first president of IMI.

The largest, most ambitious geoscience program ever undertaken, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) is an international partnership of scientists and research institutions dedicated to exploring the evolution and structure of Earth. The lead agencies in IODP are the National Science Foundation and the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport, Science, and Technology. IMI, a nonprofit corporation, has qualified to fill the role of the central management office for IODP.

IODP will use new resources and multiple platforms to support technologically advanced ocean-drilling research, enabling investigation of Earth regions and processes that were previously inaccessible and poorly understood. Japan and the United States are each contributing a drilling platform. As IODP gets under way, significant scientific and financial participation is also anticipated from Europe, which will provide the international IODP community with mission-specific platforms for drilling in special environments, such as the very shallow-water portions of continental shelves, and high-latitude ice-covered seas, such as the Arctic.

The Schlumberger Professor of Geophysics, Talwani served as director of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory (now the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory) from 1973 to 1981. He left Lamont for Gulf Oil Company, where he served first as director of the Center for Crustal Studies and later as chief scientist. When Chevron acquired Gulf in 1985, he accepted an appointment at Rice and simultaneously founded the Geotechnology Research Institute at the Houston Advanced Research Center, where he was director until 1998. Talwani will remain a member of Rice’s faculty but will take a leave of absence to serve at IMI.

Talwani’s scientific leadership has contributed greatly to the understanding of how oceans and continents evolve. He is widely known for his studies of Earth’s crust and the dynamics of continental margins and ocean basins. His scientific achievements have earned many honors and awards, including the Krishnan Gold Medal from the Indian Geophysical Union and the Macelwane Medal and Ewing Medal, both from the American Geophysical Union (the latter award given jointly with the U.S. Navy). He is also a recipient of the Woollard Award from the Geological Society of America, NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Award (for sending the first gravimeter to the moon), and the Wegener Medal from the European Union of Geosciences.

Hatfield Voted President of Coaching Association
Rice head football coach Ken Hatfield will lead the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) in 2004 as president of the organization. Hatfield, who moves up from first vice-president of the association, succeeds outgoing president Phillip Fulmer of the University of Tennessee. Hatfield was elected president by members attending the AFCA’s 2004 convention in Orlando, Florida, in January. Previous Owls coaches to lead the association were John Heisman (1924) and Jess Neely (1956).

President, Board Honor Staff Excellence
At the December meeting of the Rice University Board of Trustees, President Malcolm Gillis recognized five highly skilled nonfaculty professionals promoting high-priority, high-impact activities in science and engineering.

Wade Adams
Director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology, Wade Adams has helped the center secure substantial federal funding to advance nanotechnology research in Texas. He also has provided guidance and administrative oversight to Rice’s Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology.

Daryl Boudreaux
Daryl Boudreaux is the first director of Technology Transfer (TT), and it is his responsibility to protect and license intellectual property developed by Rice faculty and other researchers. Since 1998, 52 patents have been issued to Rice researchers, and 258 more are pending. Boudreaux also has been instrumental in assisting the faculty in launching nine start-up companies.

Tony Elam
Tony Elam joined Rice as the executive director of the Computer and Information Technology Institute, but more recently, he was appointed associate dean of engineering for research. He manages, promotes, and develops new research projects in science and engineering and has been instrumental in expanding the university’s relationship and involvement with Los Alamos National Lab and the Texas Medical Center.

Denis Headon
Denis Headon is director of the Texas/UK Research Collaborative at Rice, a multinational, cross-disciplinary research undertaking that embraces 10 institutions in Texas and six core institutions in the United Kingdom. It has funded 19 collaborative proposals, 20 percent of which involve researchers at Rice working with researchers at British schools.

Christian Holmes
Christian Holmes is executive director of the Environmental and Energy Systems Institute in the George R. Brown School of Engineering and of the new Shell Center for Sustainability. He engages Rice faculty and students in new work on sustainability issues and projects and organizes public forums on air quality and water issues.

—Reported by B. J. Almond, Jade Boyd,
Jennifer Evans, and Lindsey Fielder