Natural Sciences

Illustration to highlight the launch of the Center for Adapting Flaws into Features.

NSF grant kicks off Center for Adapting Flaws into Features

Rice University has won a Phase I National Science Foundation grant to establish the NSF Center for Adapting Flaws into Features to investigate nanoscale chemical phenomena and optimize the structures and electronic properties of materials.

Rice University researchers introduced noncanonical amino acid building blocks into proteins in living cells, pioneering a powerful tool for investigating and manipulating the structure and function of proteins. The resulting unnatural organism, a strain of Escherichia coli bacteria, is able to monitor low levels of oxidative stress. (Credit: Xiao Lab/Rice University)

Programmed bacteria have something extra

Rice chemists expand genetic code of E. coli to produce 21st amino acid, giving it new abilities.

Biochar’s benefits for the long-term sequestration of carbon and nitrogen on American farms are clear, but new research from Rice University shows it can help farmers save money on irrigation as well. The study showed that sandy soil, in particular, gains ability to retain more water when amended with biochar. (Credit: Masiello Lab/Rice University)

Biochar helps hold water, saves money

Biochar’s benefits for long-term storage of carbon and nitrogen on American farms are clear, but new research from Rice University shows it can help farmers save money on irrigation as well.

At left, top and side views of the crystal structures of perovskite-derived Cs3Bi2I9, a material synthesized at Rice University that shows valleytronics capabilities. Each unit cell contains two neighboring layers with a weak van der Waals interaction in between. At right: an image shows triangles of the material on a mica substrate. (Credit: Lou Group/Rice University)

Odds are good for unique 2D compound

Rice University engineers make 2D materials for valleytronics, a platform for information processing and storage that relies on the manipulation of electrons’ positions in energetic “valleys.”

A novel antibody-drug conjugate targets cancer cells, but also kills "bystander" cancer cells. Credit: Illustration by the Jenna Kripal/Nicolaou Research Group

Targeted tumors attack not-innocent bystanders

Antibody-drug conjugates developed are found to attack not only targeted tumor cells but also nontargeted “bystanders.”

Scientists at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine are using pClick conjugation to create therapeutic antibodies that target bone cancers. The conjugate incorporates bisphosphonate molecules that bind to the bone hydroxyapatite matrix. (Credit: Baylor College of Medicine/Rice University)

Drug doubles down on bone cancer, metastasis

Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine develop an antibody conjugate called BonTarg that delivers drugs to bone tumors and inhibits metastasis.

Video by Esteban Dodero-Rojas and Paul Whitford/Center for Theoretical Biological Physics

Rice, Rutgers developing inhalable COVID-19 vaccine spray

Scientists at Rice and Rutgers developing two COVID-19 vaccine strategies that do not require cold storage, one of which can be inhaled.

Julian West

NIH grant will help streamline chemical synthesis

Rice University chemist Julian West has won a five-year, $1.8 million National Institutes of Health grant to advance his lab’s efforts to simplify the synthesis of organic chemicals.

Rice University synthetic chemists have simplified the process to make halichondrin B, top, the parent compound of the successful cancer drug eribulin, bottom. Their reverse synthesis reduced the number of steps required to make the natural product. (Credit: Jenna Kripal/Nicolaou Research Group)

Reversal speeds creation of important molecule

A Rice lab’s reverse approach to making halichondrin B is the shortest route to a “rather complex and important molecule."

Rice University scientists have enhanced models that could detect magnetosphere activity on exoplanets. The models add data from nightside activity that could increase signals by at least an order of magnitude. In this illustration, the planet’s star is at top left, and the rainbow patches are the radio emission intensities, most coming from the nightside. The white lines are magnetic field lines. Illustration by Anthony Sciola

Nightside radio could help reveal exoplanet details

Rice scientists enhance models that could be used to detect magnetosphere activity on exoplanets. The Rice model adds data from nightside activity that could increase signals by at least an order of magnitude.

Lillian Wieland

Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium offers supportive venue for students to share ‘incredible work’

Lillian Wieland’s freshman-year presentation for the Rice Undergraduate Research Symposium (RURS) “went terribly,” as she recalls it.

Particle cards

Rice welcomes teachers for in-person physics workshop

QuarkNet returned to Rice last week for the first in-person workshop on campus since the start of the pandemic.

The mechanism by Rice University chemists for the phase evolution of fluorinated flash nanocarbons shows stages with longer and larger energy input. Carbon and fluorine atoms first form a diamond lattice, then graphene and finally polyhedral concentric carbon. (Credit: Illustration by Weiyin Chen/Rice University)

‘Flashed’ nanodiamonds are just a phase

The “flash” process developed at Rice University can turn carbon black into functionalized nanodiamond and other materials. The carbon atoms evolved through several phases depending on the length of the flash.

RAMBO

Odd angles make for strong spin-spin coupling

HOUSTON – (May 25, 2021) – Sometimes things are a little out of whack, and it turns out to be exactly what you need.

Rice University graduate student Valeriia Sobolevskaia at the on-campus well site being developed to help geoscientists continue development of fiber-optic sensors to find and evaluate small faults at underground carbon dioxide storage reservoirs. (Credit: Ajo-Franklin Lab/Rice University)

Seismic study will help keep carbon underground

A Department of Energy grant to Rice geoscientists enables development of fiber-optic sensors to find and evaluate small faults at underground carbon dioxide storage reservoirs.