Mason Porter a how important swing predicting are grades? Samson 1996 baseball season. has answer. see 7 see 5 VOLUME XCVII, NUMBER 21 PASADENA, CALIFORNIA FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1996 s s s was determined not to let the same thing happen against Azusa the following Friday, the 15th. The team got offto a streaky start, losing ,an early lead to give the game to Azusa, 16-17. However, Tech then came back with a vengeance, winning the next two games, 15-3, 15-7. Azusa was able to rally in the fourth against the Caltech bench, and took the game 15-8. However, Caltech rattled the Azusa team enough in the fifth for them to make a critical rotation error, giving Caltech the game and match, scored at 15-13. Pomona-Pitzer was the next team to fall to Tech's Erick Carreira shows offa molecule in home-court dominance, as diagram and modelform. they came to Tech on the 22nd. CaItech was hungry for the FROM PUBLIC RELATIONS The catalysts are important rematch with Pomona, to for accelerating reactions that whom they had lost early in the Four Caltech professors create molecules with the cor­ season in 3 games. Eager to have received 1996 Sloan Re­ rect molecular asymmetry to be return the favor, Tech smoth­ search Fellowships, which bring biologically active. "Left­ ered the Pomona team from $35,000 in unrestricted research handed" and "right-handed" the get-go, guided by the set­ funds to each recipient over a forms of a drug molecule can ting of Chad Edwards and the two-year period, plus consider­ produce very different effects in Ken 1t)Jberg spikes the ball home. powerhouse that is Mike Burl. able prestige. The professors, plants and animals; one may be Everyone on the team showed Erick Carreira, Matthias Flach, beneficial while the other is poi­ game winning streak, the team his skills in court as Caltech BY RICH CHINN Peter Schroder, and Zhen-Gang sonous. So scientists use asym­ sent a small squad to La Si­ steamrolled to a 1.5-9, 15-9, Wang, are four of 100 excep­ metric catalysts in reactions, While many were strug­ erra on Tuesday, the 12th of 15-12 victory. tional scientists who were such as the chiral Lewis acids gling through finals or relax­ March. The team got off to a Caltech continued its ram­ named Sloan Fellows this year. that Carreira's lab studies, to ing through vacation, the slow start, losing the first two page against Cal Poly Pomona, Carreira, an assistant profes­ control the formation ofthe cor­ Men's Volleyball Club team games to La Sierra's pumped­ who came on the 26th of sor ofchemistry at Caltech since rect type of molecule, the one was hard at work winning up squad. Caltech woke up in March. Explosive from the 1992, studies the design and with the desired pharmacologi­ three offour matches over the the third, stringing together a outset, Tech took the first two S'~tlthesis of metal complexes cal properties. period from the start ofexams virtually flawless performance games, 15-11 and 15-5. Cal that are chiral Lewis acids. Flach, an associate profes­ to the end of break. to show the team's capabili­ Poly proved stubborn in the Chiral means that the molecules sor ofmathematics, does research wa~uItimately CaItech's only loss over ties, but unable third, refusing to give up and have a special asymmetry, or in number theory, a branch ofpure this period was to La Sierra to keep the momentum taking the game, 16-14. How­ "handedness," so that they are mathematics with applications in University. Perhaps a bit tired through the fourth, eventually ever, Caltech was not to be de­ exact mirror images of each such practical areas as cryptogra­ from a hard match and prac­ losing the match 1-3. nied. Although Cal Poly's play other. Researchers in Carreira's phy. His 1992 work, in which he tice schedule, or perhaps a bit Chalking up the La Sierra improved dramatically as they lab use these Lewis acids as took ideas that were "in the air" match to experience, the team overconfident coming off a 5- SEE VOLLEYBALL ON PAGE 5 catalysts in chemical reactions at the time and applied them to a that produce compounds with new context, is widely recog- the potential to be useful drugs. SEE SLOAN ON PAGE 2 'L/ ..I!L ..... .a....... 'L/ al e s v e Useful research~ PUBLIC RELATIONS ogy, describes how the dustrial interest," said Frances USUAL WEEK'S ers used directed evolution to Arnold, an associate professor of Caltech engineers have develop a new enzyme that is chemical engineering at Caltech. STUFF FEATURES shown for the first time that an able to catalyze-increase the She collaborated on the research experimental technique known reaction rate of-an important with Jeffrey c. Moore, a gradu­ Announcements 12 Baseball Preview 7 as directed evolution can solve step in the manufacture of an ate student in chemical engi­ DILBERT® 3 Bicycle Racing 6 real, industrial problems in phar­ antibiotic. neering. The Outside World 3 Logic Puzzle 3 maceutical manufacturing. "We're very excited to dem­ The production of most Samson'sArticle 5 The result, published in the onstrate that the technique chemicals, antibiotics, YNews 5 works on a problem of real, in- April 1 issue of Nature Biotechnol- SEE EVOLUTION ON PAGE 2 March 1 1996 The California Tech : Fo ofess CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 N make them run fast enough to be use­ 0: ful in interactive design, analysis, and '"o nized in mathematical circles. Spe­ content creation, and ensure that they ;..'" 12'" o cifically, by introducing a new tech­ are robust enough to hold up under :c nique he showed that a certain group the demands of real-world users. .. of mathematical elements contains Wang has been an assistant pro­ only a finite number of members. He fessor of chemical engineering at then applied this result to a neighbor­ Caltech since 1991, where he does re­ ing area of research called the "de­ search in the theory ofcomplex fluids, formation theory of Galois represen­ including polymers, liquid crystals, tations." surfactant solutions, and molecular Flach's current research is a col­ monolayers. laborative effort in an area known as He uses modern statistical me­ Galois module theory. The chanics to investigate structures, overarching theme that links this to phase transitions, and dynamics in his previous work, and that might be these complex fluids. His recent re­ applied to all his research, is the study Matthias Flach search includes an effort to under­ Zhen-Gang Wang of special values of L-functions, an stand self-assembly-the spontane­ area he describes as "full of beautiful ling the large-scale computational ous organization ofmolecules into or­ rangement of molecules creates sub­ isolated examples connected by problems of computer graphics. A dered, nanometer-scale domains-of stances with different traits would equally beautiful sweeping conjec­ number offundamental algorithms in certain types of polymers, which of­ provide a theoretical basis for the de­ tures, but marked by a sore lack of parallel computer graphics, scientific ten results in rather exotic shapes and sign and control ofnew materials with general techniques." visualization, and rendering have symmetries. very specific properties. Peter Schroder, an assistant pro­ grown out of his research. ultimate goal with this re­ The P. Sloan Foundation, fessor ofcomputer science, joined the Graphics is a branch ofcomputer search is to establish the relationship of New York City, was founded Caltech faculty in 1995. area of science with applications everywhere between the large-scale properties of 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., who was research is computer graphics, and he these days, from desktops to labora­ materials-such as how their struc­ chief executive officer of General is one of the world's leading authori­ tories and classrooms, and even in tures respond to temperature changes, Motors for 23 years. The foundation ties on wavelet methods in this field. feature films. For Schroder, the chal­ or how they deform or break under gives grants for higher education and Specifically, his research focuses on lenge is to make efficient numerical stress-and their molecular character­ research fields of science, tech­ efficient numerical methods for tack- methods work on desktop computers, istics. Understanding how the ar- nology, economics, and public policy. LUT .. s CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 enzyme. Several generations of newvariants are screened again mutation and screening for en­ for their effectiveness. At each requires many steps, some of hanced activity can significantly step, scientists save the genes which are quite slow. To speed improve the enzyme. that produce the most active en­ up these steps, chemical engi­ Enzymes are made of zymes to become the "parents" neers use catalysts, which can be strings of hundreds of amino of the subsequent generation. metals, metal-based molecules, acids, and the mutated genes To create an industrially or ordinary enzymes. typically create enzymes with useful catalyst, Moore and In the present case, re­ several of the many amino ac­ Arnold needed to increase the searchers were working on a ids replaced by different ones. enzyme's activity by at least 10 step in the production ofa class Substituting amino acids can times. They far surpassed their of antibiotics derived from goal. After five generations cephalosporins. The phar­ of mutations, recombina­ maceutical company Eli "We've shown tions, and screenings, they Lilly, while developing the found enzymes that are as manufacturing process for l Cty of much as 30 times more ac­ these antibiotics some years tive than the one they ago, found that zinc cata­ this techn· started with.