DID YOU KNOW?
Robot Soccer
To test his pioneering theories about how the brain works, Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman and his neuroscience team developed a brain-based device, or BBD, on a Segway platform and then played robot soccer in the Hazen Courtyard. The scientists rode Segways and worked in tandem with the autonomous Segway robots to score goals. These Scripps Research robots later participated in the 2005 RoboCup American Open in Atlanta.
Double Nobel laureate
When K. Barry Sharpless followed his 2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with a second Nobel in 2022, he became one of only two scientists in history to win two Nobel Prizes in Chemistry. (The other was Frederick Sanger.)
Where it all began
You can drive by the original home of Scripps Research. The former Scripps Metabolic Clinic at 464 Prospect Street in downtown La Jolla is now a luxury condominium complex. Following a 2002 renovation, the condominiums now sell for several million dollars.
And the answer is…
When IBM’s Watson computing system defeated two celebrated human competitors on the Jeopardy! game show in February 2011, IBM shared part of the prize money with scientists at Scripps Research. A team led by Arthur Olson used the funding to launch its “GO Fight Against Malaria” computational research project aimed at finding a cure for drug-resistant malaria.
Science goes sci-fi at Scripps Research
Scenes from the 2000 sci-fi thriller The Cell, starring Jennifer Lopez, were filmed at the Hazen campus, then the home of Nobel laureate Gerald Edelman’s Neurosciences Institute. Film critic Roger Ebert placed The Cell on his list of “The Best 10 Movies of 2000.”
World’s largest NMR magnet
The largest nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) magnet ever constructed arrived at Scripps Research in June 2001. It was then assembled into the most sensitive NMR instrument on the planet.
A notable namesake
Institute founder Ellen Browning Scripps has a species of marine work named after her: Trilobodrilusellenscrippsae. The worm lives in sand off the coast of La Jolla and eats bacteria.
San Diego Airport Art
Microscopy images from the labs of Scripps Research scientists have greeted travelers at the San Diego International Airport on several occasions. An image from Arthur Olson’s lab titled “Nanoscape: A battle in the bloodstream between molecules of the immune system and a viral invader” was displayed from June to December 2008. And in 2014, half a dozen microscopy images were included in exhibits titled “Taking Art to the Cellular Level” and “Converg(ing)enuities.”
Fore! for Science
Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) and Kevin James (The King of Queens) named Scripps Research the beneficiary of their 2009 annual celebrity golf tournament. Funds raised at the tournament were directed toward research on stem cells for vision diseases such as macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.