By Ellie Sell –
Princeton has been recognized as one of the best research institutions in the country. But Princeton possesses a mixed record when it comes to producing world-leading research in the newly emerging fields in the chemical sciences.
Princeton has been recognized as one of the best research institutions in the country, and there’s no doubt that a great amount of innovative, fascinating research is being done under the shadow of Nassau Hall. But Princeton possesses a mixed record when it comes to producing world-leading research in the newly emerging fields in the chemical sciences. Here’s a run-down of the Nobel Prizes recently earned in the scientific fields and what’s being done at Princeton in those areas.
Physics
François Englert and Peter W. Higgs are the names of this year’s hot-shots who won for their work in Physics. In 1964, these two independently proposed theories that now constitute what’s called the Standard Model of particle physics. Their theories describe how the entire world is constructed, from individual atoms to the entire universe. The core principle of the Standard Model is that everything from animals and people to shooting stars and galaxies are made up of basic particles called matter particles. These matter particles are what we now call Higgs-Boson particles, or “god” particles.
Although neither Englert nor Higgs is directly affiliated with Princeton, the Orange Bubble is home to several other physicists doing significant research in this particular area. Professor Christopher Tully worked on the Higgs project for more than 20 years, and Pierre Piroué, the Henry DeWolf Smyth Professor of Physics, first conducted research at CERN in 1960, just six years after the start of the project. This discovery of the “god” particle also included Daniel Marlow, the 1911 Professor of Physics, and professional specialist Valerie Halyo.
Chemistry
Together Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt, and Arieh Warshel won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems.” With the great advances in computer science in the last several decades, research in chemistry is slowly changing from a science that calls for pouring acids into beakers in a lab to simulating chemical reactions using computers. With computers, scientists can now watch the smallest particles of matter react. And not only can they watch them react, they can pause the process, rewatch it, and study it like never before. Karplus, Levitt, and Warshel are three of the fathers of these new methods of studying chemistry with computers.
Wei Yang, who worked with Martin Karplus at Harvard University when he was a postdoctoral student and whose current research at Florida State University is an extension of his earlier work, remarked that, “At Princeton, there are a couple of good computational chemists whose work is related [to the Nobel Laureates’] like Garnet Chan, Roberto Car, Emily Carter, and several others in the department of chemical engineering.” However, despite the work of these outstanding researchers, Princeton lags behind other top research institutions in this new field. If Princeton wants to maintain its reputation as one of the best research institutions in the world, the growing significance of this new field in chemical research demands the University’s attention.
Physiology and Medicine
This year the Prize in Medicine was given to Princeton’s own James E. Rothman, as well as Randy W. Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof, “for their discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells.” Unraveling the mysteries of substances and transported between, into, and out of cells is crucial to understanding diseases such as diabetes, many types of cancer, and numerous additional diseases. Understanding this transport process opened the door for many new treatments and cures for serious diseases. James Rothman, who spent three years on Princeton’s faculty, determined how cells latch onto and recognize the vehicles that transport substances around the cell, vesicles. While Rothman studied cell transport processes back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, he discovered that certain kinds of proteins allowed transportation of foreign substances into cells. This discovery, and his investigation of its implications, landed him the highest award offered in medical research. Randy Schekman and Thomas Südhof, Rothman’s corecipients, discovered a series of genes that are required to transport substances throughout the cell and uncovered how signals from cells tell vesicles when and where to release their contents respectively.
All in all, Princeton had a pretty good showing for the 2013 Nobel Prizes in the scientific fields. Although Princeton maintains and has historically fostered significant research in physics and medicinal sciences, Princeton has not facilitated a computational chemistry community that is as strong as those at other top universities. As computers become increasingly important to scientific research, devoting time and resources to stimulating a robust computational chemistry community will become significant to maintain the University’s stellar reputation and to further the community of scientific research as a whole.