The Associated Press 

RANCHO SANTA FE, Calif. (AP) - Oreste Piccioni, renowned for pioneering 1950s 
research in the elementary components of matter that helped bring a Nobel 
prize to two colleagues, died April 13 of complications of diabetes and lung 
cancer. He was 86.
 
At Brookhaven National Laboratory, Piccioni developed techniques that 
enhanced the research capabilities of particle accelerator work being done at 
University of California, Berkeley. He worked part-time in the landmark 
experiments, which used a Bevatron accelerator to detect positive and 
negative atomic components moving at speeds only a few billionth of seconds 
apart.
 
But the 1959 Nobel Prize for that work went to principal investigators Emilio 
Segre and Owen Chamberlain. A Nobel acceptance speech credited Piccioni's 
contribution of use of magnetic lenses to concentrate the stream of particles 
under study.
 
In 1972, Piccioni filed a lawsuit seeking damages of $125,000 for wrongfully 
being left out of the Nobel honor for the discovery of antiprotons but a 
judge ruled two years later that the suit was filed too late.
 
Piccioni was awarded the prestigious Matteucci Medal from the Accademia 
Nazionale Delle Scienze of Italy in 1999 for his contributions to elementary 
particle physics. Previous recipients of the award included Albert Einstein, 
Pierre and Marie Curie and Niels Bohr.
 
Piccioni studied in his native Italy in the 1930s with Enrico Fermi, atomic 
theory patriarch and Nobel winner. During World War II Piccioni continued 
research underground in the basement of a Rome high school.
 
He came to the United States in 1946, to continue his research at the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later at the Brookhaven National 
Laboratory.
 
Piccioni was a retired physics professor at University of California, San 
Diego.