Nobel Prize Scientists

Richard Taylor shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with his colleague Jerome Friedman for a series of experiments proving demonstrating that protons, neutrons, and the other elementary particles of the atom are in turn composed of smaller entities, known as quarks. Born in the town of Medicine Hat, in Alberta, Canada, Taylor earned his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, and his Ph.D. at Stanford, where he joined the High Energy Physics Laboratory. From its inception, he was involved in the design and construction of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). The experiments run at SLAC in the late 1960s and early '70s involved scattering high-energy beams of electrons from protons and deuterons and heavier nucleii. The results provided the first experimental evidence that the protons and neutrons were made up of point-like particles, later identified to be the up-and-down quarks that had previously been proposed on theoretical grounds. The experiments also provided the first evidence for the existence of gluons. In this address to the Academy of Achievement, recorded at the 1991 Summit in New York City, Dr. Taylor recalls his collaboration with his fellow physicist Jerome Friedman and their discoveries of electron/proton scatterings. He discusses the role of leadership in team work and urges the students to take their time and enjoy the process of education. In extolling the importance of taking risks, he also relates the heavy price he paid for his own risk-taking.

The world's greatest living chemist, Elias Corey, is one of the great pioneers of modern science. In 1990 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his development of the theory and methodology of organic synthesis," specifically retrosynthetic analysis. Before Corey's work, chemists synthesized compounds one by one, by trial and error. Corey established general rules that can be applied to the synthesis of any organic substance. Born to a family of Lebanese immigrants in Methuen, Massachusetts, his father died when he was 18 months old, and his mother struggled through the Depression to raise him and his brother and sisters in the home of his aunt and uncle. After earning a Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT at age 22, he taught chemistry at the University of Illinois, where he became a full Professor the age of 27. Three years later, he moved to Harvard University, where he is now an Emeritus Professor of Organic Chemistry and heads the renowned Corey Group research program. In the late '60s, his group created the first synthetic prostaglandins, the proteins that regulate the functions of the heart, brain, kidneys, stomachs and other organs. His work has enabled the creation of purer drugs with reduced side effects. In 1988, he was awarded the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest honor awarded to scientists. In this address to the Academy of Achievement, recorded during the 1991 Summit in New York City, he discusses the confluence of recent developments in chemistry, physics, biology, computer science and electronics. He also shares with the Academy's student delegates his fascination with chemistry and its application to health and human relationships.

The pioneering surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray received the 1990 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his accomplishments in transplant surgery, including the first transplant of a human kidney from a living donor, an event that opened the door to the entire field of transplantation surgery. He was first inspired to become a surgeon by his childhood experience with a family doctor. He graduated from Harvard Medical School, but his residency was interrupted by service in World War II. During the war, he learned the techniques of plastic surgery; he later applied the methods of skin grafting to the transplantation of organs. For many years, Dr. Murray was Professor of Surgery at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He is now retired from active practice. In this podcast, recorded at the Academy of Achievement's 1991 Summit in New York City, Dr. Murray recalls his career as a surgeon, including his early experience with kidney transplants and his pioneering work correcting congenital facial deformities in young children. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining a balance between work and family life and reminds the students that "service to society is the rent we pay to live on this planet."

Harold Elliot Varmus is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and the 14th and current Director of the National Cancer Institute, a post he was appointed to by President Barack Obama. He was a co-recipient (along with J. Michael Bishop) of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes.

He spoke to and answered qustions from students at the 1990 Academy of Achievement Summit in Chicago.

Hans Dehmelt received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1989 for his development of the ion trap technique, used for high precision measurement of the electron g-factor. Dehmelt was born in Germany. From his school days in Berlin, he was fascinated by radio technology. He began his university training in physics while serving in the German Army during World War II, but was captured by American forces at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war, he supported himself in graduate school by repairing and bartering old, pre-war radios. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Gottingen, where he participated in the discovery of Nuclear Quadropole Resonance. He was invited to join the microwave laboratory at Duke University in North Carolina, and emigrated to the United States in 1952. He later became a Professor of Physics at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he performed the experiments that earned him his Nobel Prize. At the Academy of Achievement's 1990 Summit in Chicago, heard in this podcast, he gave a fascinating account of his lifelong study of the electron. He continued his research through the end of his career. In 1979, his team at the University of Washington were the first to record a photographic image of a single atom. He retired from the University of Washington in 2002.

Nobel Laureate, Thomas Cech, grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. In 1966, he entered Grinnell College where he obtained a B.A. in 1970. In 1975, Cech completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley and in the same year, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he engaged in postdoctoral research.

In 1978, he obtained his first faculty position at the University of Colorado where he lectured undergraduate students in chemistry and biochemistry, and where he remains on the faculty, currently as Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. In 2000, Dr. Cech succeeded Purnell

Choppin as president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Maryland. He also continues to head his world-renowned biochemistry laboratory, the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology, at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Cech continues to teach undergraduate chemistry at CU-Boulder. On April 1, 2008, Dr Cech announced that he will step down as the president of HHMI, to return to teaching and research, in spring 2009.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910 - 1995) was an Indian-born American astrophysicist who, with William A. Fowler, won the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics for key discoveries that led to the currently accepted theory on the later evolutionary stages of massive stars. Chandrasekhar was the nephew of Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1930.

Chandrasekhar served on the University of Chicago faculty from 1937 until his death in 1995 at the age of 84. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1953.

Donald Glaser is a pioneering American physicist and neurobiologist and, for more than 50 years, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He was a brilliant young physicist at the University of Michigan, who became frustrated when he tried to observe the tracks of atom particles. Glaser experimented with using superheated liquid in a glass chamber, and found that strange particles would leave a track of bubbles as they passed through the liquid, and their tracks could be photographed. His new invention ’Ŭ called the ’źbubble chamber’Ź ’Ŭ was ideal for use with high-energy accelerators and paved the way for many important discoveries. Glaser won a Nobel Prize for Physics for it at the age of 34. Glaser then switched his interests from the basic particles of matter to fundamental molecules of life in 1962. He worked in UC Berkeley’Ŵs Virus Lab doing experiments with bacteria and mammalian cells and studied the development of cancer cells. As with the bubble chamber, he used his experience designing equipment to improve the experimental process. In 1971, he co-founded Cetus Corporation and became the Chairman of its Science Advisory Board. The company founders felt that the knowledge scientists had gained about DNA had not yet been applied to solve real problems. The company did genetic engineering and became the world’Ŵs first biotechnology company. Professor Glaser spoke to the student delegates and answered their questions at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco about his research in molecular biology and neuroscience.

Paul Berg is Professor Emeritus at Stanford University’Ŵs School of Medicine and a respected biochemist and geneticist. He is most renowned for his pioneering work involving recombinant DNA, the process of inserting DNA from another species into a molecule, leading to the development of modern genetic engineering. After developing the technique, Berg used it for his studies of viral chromosomes. He has not only been a trailblazer in genetics, but has also helped shape policies for dealing with its possible dangers. His contributions to the biological sciences over the past half-century have earned him the admiration of his colleagues and students, and many honors, including the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, the National Medal of Science, and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Professor Berg addressed the student delegates at the 1989 Achievement Summit in San Francisco.

Donald Cram (April 22, 1919 ’Ŭ June 17, 2001) was an American chemist who won the National Medal of Science and shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for research that has yielded significant new insights into chemical reactions that take place within human cells, an extraordinary achievement that enables scientists to duplicate important life processes, bridging the gap from the physical organic world to issues of molecules that are important for life itself. He was a founder of the field of host-guest chemistry. Cram grew up on Aid to Dependent Children and worked at a series of jobs at an early age. He graduated from Rollins College in Florida and the University of Nebraska before earning his doctorate in organic chemistry at Harvard in 1947. He went on to become a popular teacher at UCLA where he taught 8,000 undergraduates in his career and guided 200 graduate students. Cram published over 350 research papers and eight books on organic chemistry. He addressed the students at the 1988 Achievement Summit the year after earning the Nobel Prize.