From Houston Chronicle, October 29, 2005:
Richard Errett Smalley, a gifted chemist who shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of buckyballs, helped pioneer the field of nanotechnology and became Houston’s most notable scientist, died Friday afternoon after a six-year struggle with cancer. He was 62.
Smalley possessed prodigious talent both within the lab, where he cobbled individual atoms together like tinker toys, and outside academia after he won science’s greatest prize. In the decade since he became a Nobel laureate, Smalley pushed Rice University and Houston to the forefront of nanotechnology research.
Rest of the article here.
Accidental Blogger 
6 responses to “Houston Nobelist Dead At 62”
Any relationship between dealing with “nanotechnology” and getting cancer?
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I have not heard of any such link. I am inclined to blame Houston’s polluted air before I look for a correlation with nanotechnology.
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Airborne nanoparticles (e.g., from car exhaust) permeate deep into the lung and hold the potential of being more carcinogenic than regular, large particles. A search of Pubmed for the terms ‘nanoparticles cancer’ yields 391 hits. Most describe the utility of nanoparticles for delivery of drugs to the tumor. Small size allows superior equilibration and superior interaction with target molecules found on cancer cells.
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“Nanotechnology” is a new way to talk about research that was already going on under other rubrics. Now we imagine that research leading somewhere we didn’t imagine before, to something we call “nanotechnology.” No nanotechnology exists yet, even in prototype. No newly sized materials exist, but for buckyballs (carbon nanotubes I’m considering on par with graphite). I think it would be a mistake to think that any new carcinogen-generating area of research is under way.
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The disturbing relationship for me is the guy’s name: Smalley. Was he born Smalley?
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Nanotechnology refers to the application of known scientific methods at the nano level – where dimensions are comparable to atomic and molecular sizes. You are right that no new scientific principle is involved except to translate existing ones to a miniature level. The idea behind it is the same as crushing salt and sugar, spices and herbs for better mixing during cooking. A major portion of nanotech research is currently devoted to devising more effective delivery of drugs, especially to cancer cells.
Smalley’s original contribution for which he got the Nobel was in packaging carbon atoms (from natural diamond and graphite) into the “buckyball” arrangement which enhanced electrical conductivity of carbon conductors. He later extended his research into the area of nanotubes – an arrangement of carbon atoms (and even metals) into very thin cylinders – only a few molecules thick ( theoretically even just one atom in thickness) rolled out of graphite, copper etc.
There is some suspicion about the cancer causing nature of nanoparticles present in common carbon pollutants in the exhaust fumes of automobiles and industrial emissions. These particles are believed to be much more deadly than the same materials in larger particulate form. Here too “the smaller, the better” principle is operational. The minute particles, when inhaled, are better able to penetrate the alveoli of the lungs than are larger lumps.
I don’t know what laboratory conditions prevailed in Smalley’s lab and if indeed they would render researchers more vulnerable to cancer. I suppose they could, if you inhaled nano particles of carbon and other elements while handling them, especially in the powdered form. That would be a very similar situation as inhaling particles from soot and exhaust. Although no definite correlation has been established, the possibility of this occupational hazard is not too preposterous.
As for the eerie correlation that might exist between a person’s given name and life’s work, you have given me an idea for a whole new post!
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