The Beckman Institute Technology Tour

Biophysicists, image analysts, and voice-recognition specialists pooled their expertise at the Beckman Institute to develop new ways of manipulating three-dimensional images of complex molecules. By using hand gestures and verbal commands, the researchers can more closely study how molecules respond to changes in energy or chemistry

A walking robot modeled on a cockroach was the brain child of an engineer, an entomologist, and a neurobiologist. By modeling the robot on the physiology of an insect, they gave the machine such desirable characteristics as agility, a low center of gravity, independently controlled legs, and the ability to function even after suffering damage.

The initials "URI" (for "University Research Initiative) were inscribed by hot electrons from the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope, which knocked individual hydrogen atoms off a passivated silicon substrate. The copper coils, both smaller than the date on a U.S. penny, are each a solenoid for a miniature nuclear magnetic resonance machine being used to study the resonance of molecules in nanoliter volumes.

In fact, however, members of most disciplines were present on both committees. "People kept saying they were on the wrong one," Greenough recalled, "but it was the genius of Ted Brown to put them together." Although both committees were "led to believe they were competitive, they both independently came up with similar ideas for an interdisciplinary research center."

The next year, their proposals were combined into one, which was submitted to Arnold O. Beckman, an Illinois alumnus (BS, chemical engineering, 1922, and MS, physical chemistry, 1923). He had gone on to get a Ph.D. and become a chemistry professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, and later, in 1935, founded National Technical Laboratories (renamed Beckman Instruments Inc. in 1950). With the development of several best-selling analytical instruments, the company prospered, and in 1987, its leader was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

In 1985, though, Beckman was applying his inventiveness elsewhere: negotiating conditions with both the Illinois state government and the university to ensure ongoing operational support for a potential institute. In October, he and his wife Mabel announced their princely gift of US $40 million to the university to found the Beckman Institute. The sum was "unimaginable at the time to fund a multidisciplinary project of this scale," Greenough recollected.

It would take a year, the university administration estimated, to design the building's basic plan. "Beckman said, 'Why not do it by Dec. 10 of this year?' and then [removed] his hearing aid," Hess recalled. "He knew if there was time, people would find a hair in the soup." The 29 000-square-meter building of brick terrazzo and marble was completed in two years, and most of the research groups had moved in by 1989.

Today the Beckman Institute encompasses nearly 1000 faculty, staff, and students (undergraduate and graduate), including about 130 people from the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications.