Rice University


Buckminsterfullerene, Rick Smalley, Bob Curl; Won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of fullerenes (along with Sir Harold W. Kroto, Univerisity of Sussex)  1985 H. W. Kroto, J. R. Heath, S. C. O’Brien, R. F. Curl and R. E. Smalley, “C60: buckminsterfullerene,” Nature 1985, 318, 162-3.

Generation of Bose-Einstein condensates in lithium and the discovery of soliton trains by Randy Hulet (Physics & Astronomy)  1992-93 culminating in his 1995 paper “Evidence of Bose-Einstein condensation in an atomic gas with attractive interactions” Phys. Rev. Lett 75, 1687 (1995).  His soliton success was achieved in 2002,the work being reported in “Formation and propagation of matter soliton trains” Nature,417,150 (2002).

Discovery of a new tectonic plate, now called the Capricorn Plate, by Richard Gordon (Earth Science).  1997 J.-Y. Royer and R. G. Gordon, The motion and boundary between the Capricorn and Australian plates, Science 277, 1268-1274 (1997)

Pioneering work on helium optical pumping, which forms the basis of ultrasensitive magnetometers still used in diverse applications such as submarine detection as well as ultrasensitive MRI imaging by King Walters (Physics & Astronomy)  1963-1975 Polarization of 3He by Optical Pumping, F. D. Colegrove, L. D. Schearer, and G. K. Walters, Phys. Rev. 132, 2561 (1963).

Insight into the Earth’s magnetosphere leading to the Rice Convection Model, the “gold standard” against which others compare their work and the basis of space weather forecasting by Dick Wolf (Physics & Astronomy)  1970 was the beginning of this theoretical model, and work has continued to the present.  R. A. Wolf, Effects of ionospheric conductivity on conventive flow of plasma in the magnetosphere, J. Geophys. Res. 75, 4644-4698 (1970).

Development of thin diamond films and ground-breaking research in fluorine chemistry by John Margrave (Chemistry)  1994 C. Pan, C. J. Chu, J. L. Margrave and R. H. Hauge, “Chlorine-activated diamond chemical vapor deposition,” Journal of the Electrochemical Society 141, 3246-9 (1994).  2003 J. L. Margrave, Z. Gu, R. H. Hauge and R. E. Smalley, “Method for cutting single-wall carbon nanotubes through fluorination and pyrolysis,” (William Marsh Rice University, USA). PCT Int. Appl., Wol. (2003).

Identification of the key role of nucleotides in human immune function by Fred Rudolph (Biochemistry & Cell Biology)  mid-1980’s  Key paper:  1983 C. T. Van Buren, A. D. Kulkarni, V. B. Shandle, and F. B. Rudolph, In inlfuence of dietary nucleotides on cell-mediated immunity, Transplantation 36, 350-352 (1983).

Discovery of single-gene greenbeard effects by Joan Strassmann and David Queller (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology)  2003 D. C. Queller, E. Ponte, S. Bozzaro, and J. E. Strassmann, Single-gene greenbeard effects in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, Science 299, 105-106 (2003)

Generation of modified hemoglobin molecules suitable for blood substitutes by John Olson (Biochemistry & Cell Biology)  1996 (and subsequent years) R. F. Eich, T. Li, D. D. Lemon, D. H. Doherty, S. R. Curry, J. F. Aitken, A. J. Mathews, K. A. Johnson, R. D. Smith, G. N. Phillips, Jr., J. S. Olson, Mechanism of NO-induced oxidation of myoglobin and hemoglobin

Discovery of the role of oxygenated sterols in cholesterol metabolism by George Schroepfer (Biochemistry & Cell Biology)  mid-1970’s through mid 1980’s Example paper:  1977  G. J. Schorepfer, Jr., E. J., Parish, H. W. Chen, and A. A. Kandutsch, Inhibition of sterol biosynthesis in L cells and mouse liver cells by 15-oxygenated sterols, J. Biol. Chem. 252, 8975-8980 (1977).