Stephen Lippard wins faculty’s Killian Award
Stephen J. Lippard, who is widely acknowledged as one of the founders of the field of bioinorganic chemistry, is this year’s recipient of MIT’s James R. Killian Jr. Faculty Achievement Award.Established in 1971 to honor MIT’s 10th president, the Killian Award recognizes extraordinary professional achievements by an MIT faculty member. In announcing this year’s award at the May 15 faculty meeting, the award committee noted that Lippard’s “groundbreaking work has pushed back the frontiers of inorganic chemistry, while simultaneously paving the way for improvements in human health and the conquering of disease.”Lippard, the Arthur Amos Noyes Professor of Chemistry, has spent his career studying the role of inorganic molecules, especially metal ions and their complexes, in critical processes of biological systems. He has made pioneering contributions in understanding the mechanism of the cancer drug cisplatin and in designing new variants to combat drug resistance and side effects. His research achievements...