When Nobel winner met Philly schoolkids, he found their passion 'touching'

Columbia University professor Joachim Frank was named Wednesday morning as one of three winners of this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. In 2014, the Franklin Institute also recognized him for his discoveries, and he spent two hours fielding questions from Philadelphia schoolchildren — describing their curiosity as "encouraging and very touching."

Frank is famed for developing a type of microscope that revealed the workings of ribosomes — the miniature factories that make proteins inside living cells.

The Nobel Committee said his work, along with that of co-winners Jacques Dubochet, of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and Richard Henderson, of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, in England, "has moved biochemistry into a new era."

Read about Frank's visit to Philadelphia in 2014 below:

Apr 23, 2014

A ceramic disk, cooled by liquid nitrogen, hovered in the air above a silvery magnet. Nearby, a table was covered with large-scale plastic models of ribosomes, the amorphous, cellular protein factories that are essential to life.

Across the hall were a hard hat, headphones, and a power saw mighty enough to cut through rock.

It was a vivid reminder that science comes in many forms. The occasion Tuesday morning was Laureates' Laboratory, a forum where winners of this year's Franklin Institute science awards conducted an uncontrolled experiment of sorts.

The scientists stood behind tables for two hours at the museum, conducting demonstrations and answering questions from schoolchildren or anyone who happened by.

Columbia University professor Joachim Frank , winner of the Franklin Medal in life science, hardly stopped expounding for two hours.

"People are streaming in," he marveled. "They don't just have a casual interest. I find it very encouraging and very touching. "

The institute's awards program, which dates to 1824, has in the past honored such luminaries as Albert Einstein, Thomas A. Edison, and Marie Curie. This year, the museum is recognizing eight scientists and engineers, as well as bestowing an award for business leadership on William W. George, a Harvard Business School professor and former chief executive officer of Medtronic Corp.

The honors are to be given in a black-tie ceremony Thursday evening hosted by Bob Schieffer, moderator of CBS's Face the Nation.

But before that, the winners had to do a lot of talking.

Frank answered questions about his development of a technique called cryo-electron microscopy, for taking pictures of ribosomes. Frank is a physicist by training, but the real impact of his discovery was in biology, where it helped depict the twisting, "ratcheting" maneuver by which ribosomes make proteins.

Cameron Klales, a senior at Science Leadership Academy, just three blocks from the museum, stood rapt as Frank demonstrated how proteins emerge from this cellular assembly line.

"Some of it definitely goes over my head," Klales said, "but I got the basics of it. "

Nearby stood geophysicist Lisa Tauxe, winner of the Franklin Medal in earth and environmental science, who counts power saws among the tools of her trade. Speaking to students from KIPP DuBois Collegiate Academy in West Philadelphia, she advised wearing ear protection around such devices.

"Most of the old guys in my field are deaf," Tauxe said.

A professor of geophysics at Scripps Institution of Oceanography of the University of California, San Diego, Tauxe is being honored for her study of the Earth's magnetic field.

She explained how the location of magnetic north has varied through the ages, due to the churning of molten iron deep inside the Earth. These historic patterns can be detected by the orientation of metal particles in ancient sediments, allowing paleontologists to pinpoint when they were deposited.

The floating ceramic disk was the handiwork of Al Bruno, a Franklin Institute science interpreter. He was helping explain the work of Daniel Kleppner, winner of the Franklin Medal in physics, who stood nearby.

When cooled by the liquid nitrogen, the disk became a superconductor, meaning it conducted electricity with no resistance.

In the presence of a magnetic field, such materials levitate, as did the disk.

Kleppner, a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did not discover this phenomenon, but is renowned for his work with ultracold hydrogen. He also helped develop the hydrogen maser, a device that emits a beam of microwaves and is used in deep space communications.