Nobel Prize winner Capecchi tabbed as Leonardo's top consultant

Nobel Prize-winning scientist Mario Capecchi hopes to make more historic discoveries: He wants to find other prize-winning scientists and artists, right here in Utah.

So the gifted University of Utah geneticist is lending his name and expertise to The Leonardo in hopes of inspiring rising generations of potential Nobel laureates.

On Tuesday, the science-technology-art center announced Capecchi has joined the budding Salt Lake City museum as senior adviser.

"Where is the next Leonardo [da Vinci]?" he asked. As a geneticist, he said it was a question too complex to predict. "The only recourse we have is to encourage all of our children to follow their dreams and ambitions."

Having Capecchi offer insights on programming and displays is a "valuable gift that will make an enormous difference," said Spencer F. Eccles, a champion of The Leonardo, "inspiring young people to become the Nobel Prize winners of the future."

Eccles and other donors celebrated Capecchi's participation and another promising announcement for the long-awaited center: It is set to open April 15, 2011, Leonardo da Vinci's 559th birthday.

City voters approved a $10.2 million bond in 2003 to transform the former main library into a one-of-a-kind art-and-science show house. But since then, the effort, led by the nonprofit Leonardo group, has endured some twists and turns.

The project teetered on the brink of collapse as costs ballooned, a naming-rights

deal fell through and Mayor Ralph Becker threatened, last year, to withhold the bond money if a better business plan did not materialize.

But in January, an outside consultant gave rave reviews to a pared-down, $25 million project. Becker and the City Council agreed to dispense the voter-approved dollars, which The Leonardo had to match with $10 million in private donations. The group now is working to raise the final $5 million to start creating exhibits in January 2011.

Crews already have started stripping asbestos from the 45-year-old building at Library Square -- just south of downtown's new Main Library. Seismic upgrades and other repairs are next.

The old library, which the city will lease to The Leonardo, is a "blank canvas of possibility," Becker said Tuesday, via video.

On Tuesday, The Leonardo showed off a prototype of a future exhibit: a 20-foot-by-5-foot "bubble wall." The giant, soap-film bubble is designed to teach viewers about the molecular structure of water, surface tension and light refraction.

Capecchi wants to see The Leonardo become a forum for in-depth discussions of issues such as health-care reform, global warming and environmental sustainability.

"A vibrant democracy is dependent on an informed citizenry," he said. "We have to engage [everyone], ... particularly young people. They are going to be the caretakers of our very fragile Earth."

Society, he added, should "not forget the arts, because they feed the soul."

Capecchi won the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with two others, for developing "gene targeting" in mice. The technique has helped subsequent researchers understand how human genes function, particularly in relation to diseases.

Safia Keller, an attendee representing Westminster College, called Capecchi's involvement with The Leonardo "unbelievable."

"It takes something to inspire a child," she said. "This country is really lacking in scientists."

She is looking forward to April 2011, when she can walk through The Leonardo with her 14-year-old son, who already loves paleontology and astronomy.

rwinters@sltrib.com