[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 145 (Friday, November 4, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2277]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN MEMORY OF RICHARD E. SMALLEY

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. MICHAEL M. HONDA

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, November 4, 2005

  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the memory of one of 
our nation's greatest minds. Last week, the scientific world and the 
nanotechnology community in particular lost a giant. Dr. Richard 
Smalley, the Nobel Prize-winning nanotechnology researcher, died after 
a long battle with cancer at age 62. Professor Smalley shared the Nobel 
Prize for Chemistry in 1996 for discovering the C60 
molecule, a soccer ball-shaped form of carbon called 
buckminsterfullerene.
  A professor in the physics and chemistry departments at Rice 
University, he was the founding director of the Center for Nanoscale 
Science and Technology at Rice and was director of the Carbon 
Nanotechnology Laboratory.
  It is hard to overstate the role Dr. Smalley played in founding and 
fostering the development of nanotechnology, one of the most important 
and exciting new areas of scientific inquiry to arise in the past 
quarter century. The discovery of fullerenes is one of the earliest and 
most influential discoveries in the development of nanotechnology. Dr. 
James Heath, one of his former graduate students on the buckyball 
discovery who has become a leading nanotechnology researcher himself, 
described Dr. Smalley as ``a Moses for the field. Without a Moses, 
there's no trip to the promised land.''
  Dr. Smalley was a key player in the development of the United States' 
National Nanotechnology Initiative, launched in 2000. His testimony on 
Capitol Hill, where he spoke about the promise of nanotechnology for 
treating cancer and other diseases even as he battled the disease 
himself, made a deep impression on policymakers.
  In recent years, Dr. Smalley was an ardent supporter of commercial 
development of nanotechnology, helping to found Carbon Nanotechnologies 
Inc. to make sure his discoveries made it to the marketplace where they 
could benefit society. He was also a scientific adviser to biotech 
startup C Sixty, which is investigating the use of fullerenes for 
biopharmaceutical applications.
  In 2002, Dr. Smalley embarked upon a crusade to promote the use of 
nanotechnology to solve what he described as the No. 1 problem facing 
humanity in the 21st century--the need for cheap, clean energy. Smalley 
crisscrossed the country, gave dozens of keynote addresses, testified 
before Congress and met with countless government, academic and 
industrial leaders. Some of his friends and colleagues have said that 
they thought he fought so hard against his disease so that he could one 
day see nanotechnology deliver the societal benefits in clean energy 
that he so passionately believed in.
  Citizens of the world were fortunate to have Rick Smalley, and will 
certainly benefit from his discoveries. We owe it to him to continue 
his efforts to use nanotechnology to solve the need for cheap, clean 
energy. As ranking member of the Science Committee's Energy 
Subcommittee, I intend to do what I can to honor Dr. Smalley's memory 
and continue his good work.

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