‘Not Because It Is Easy’

Spring 2024
By Mike Williams

You can call them technology accelerators or launchpads. But at Rice, they’re referred to as “moonshots” for a reason. Much like the program that brought humanity to the moon, the university is striving to solve global problems on a deadline, with President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech at Rice Stadium as an inspiration. Rice’s motivation, however, comes from within.

Two moonshots announced in recent months are addressing  goals in health care and energy transition technology. Launched last September on the anniversary of Kennedy’s moonshot speech, the Rice Biotech Launch Pad is already collaborating with the federal government and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate the development of implants to regulate circadian rhythms and treat cancer and HIV, as well as a topical device to accelerate healing. Led by bioengineer Omid Veiseh and executive director Paul Wotton, the program is based at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative and the Texas Medical Center’s recently opened Helix Park, a 37-acre campus designed to foster research breakthroughs. 

Both moonshots are accelerating the commercialization of technology, which is the best way to get it into people’s lives.

“The goal is to identify critical needs in medicine and build and validate technologies to address them,” says Veiseh, whose Rice lab has developed implants that sense conditions and secrete drugs on demand to treat diabetes and other diseases. The Biotech Launch Pad aims to bring more such products to clinical trials in the next five years. 

The program differs from traditional accelerators that mentor scientists and guide them toward startups, Veiseh says. “We’re more of a venture creation group,” he says. 

“A lot of foundational technologies get created in Houston, but we were missing two key ingredients: the talent to build investable businesses around the technology and the capital to support them. 

“You need a credible CEO: a serial entrepreneur who has done it before,” he adds, noting that Wotton, a collaborator in his own startups, fits the bill perfectly. “Rice’s investment has allowed us to bring the right people to the ecosystem.”

More recently, Rice launched its second moonshot, this one targeting climate change. The Woodside-Rice Decarbonization Accelerator aims to bring breakthrough decarbonization technology from Rice labs to market. Led by Rice’s chief innovation officer and physicist Paul Cherukuri and chemical engineer Aditya Mohite, in partnership with Woodside Energy — a global energy company specializing in oil, gas and new energy technologies — the program will develop technological solutions that convert carbon dioxide into useful products on a commercial scale.

“Both moonshots are accelerating the commercialization of technology, which is the best way to get it into people’s lives,” says Cherukuri. “Like Kennedy’s original moonshot, they’re really difficult to do but have well-defined targets. In this case, a breakthrough needs to happen in the fundamental science around energy. The biggest problem we have with oil and gas is not that they’re not good fuel, they’re great fuel. The issue is the waste product.” 

The potential of plasmonic catalysis, developed by pioneering Rice engineer Naomi Halas to break up carbon dioxide, could be key to their success. Along with Cherukuri, Mohite and Halas, the moonshot’s founding scientists include chemist Bruce Weisman and physicist Peter Nordlander. “They’re all among the most highly cited scientists in the world,” Cherukuri says. 

The project will begin in research labs at Rice and move to Rice’s Ion District for innovation in Midtown, where the team will develop larger scale reactors that convert carbon dioxide gas into solid carbon. “Carbon dioxide is a really hard molecule to break up, at least in a cost-effective way,” Cherukuri says. “If we figure it out,  I think we have a shot at changing the world.” 

Learn more at biotechlaunchpad.rice.edu and woodside.rice.edu.