|
James D. Watson, 1962 Nobel laureate in medicine, to
deliver lecture at IIT April 15
CHICAGO, March 24, 1999—Nobel laureate James D. Watson
will deliver a free public lecture at Illinois Institute of
Technology (IIT) on Thursday, April 15, to discuss his scientific
achievements across a path-breaking career.
|
The lecture, “From the Double Helix to the Human Genome
Project,” will begin at 4 p.m. in IIT’s Hermann Union Building,
3241 S. Federal St., Chicago. A reception will follow.
Later that day, IIT will present Watson with the
Henry Townley
Heald Award, the university’s highest honor, which is named for
IIT’s first president. The private black-tie dinner will be held at
the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Chicago.
Watson is best known for his 1953 discovery of the structure of
DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), for which he received, with
Francis Crick and Maurice Wilkins, the 1962 Nobel Prize in
Medicine. They proposed that the DNA molecule takes the
shape of a double helix, an elegantly simple structure that
resembles a gently twisted ladder.
After a teaching career at Harvard (1955-1976), Watson became
director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island,
New York. He was a driving force behind establishing the
Human Genome Project, a worldwide effort to map and
sequence the genes of a complete set of chromosomes, and
became the project’s first director in 1989. After the project was
well under way, he resigned his position as director in 1992.
Watson is now president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Watson has received numerous
honors, including the Medal of Freedom from President Ford
(1977), the Copley Medal from the Royal Society (1993), the
National Medal of Science (1997) and the Mendel Medal
(1998).
The Watson lecture is sponsored by IIT’s
Institute for Science,
Law and Technology (ISLAT) and co-sponsored by Chicago Area Sigma
Xi.
For more information, call (312) 567-3104.
ISLAT was established in 1997 as a joint venture of Chicago-
Kent College of Law and other academic units of IIT. The
institute is designed to evaluate emerging technologies and their
impact on society, to provide a forum for academic and public
policy specialists, and to meet the growing need for science and
law-trained professionals capable of addressing the
interdisciplinary issues. The institute focuses on three broad
subject areas: biotechnology, information technology and
environmental protection.
Illinois Institute of Technology is a private, Ph.D.-granting
university with programs in engineering, science, psychology,
architecture, business, design and law. One of the 16 institutions
of the Association of Independent Technological Universities
(AITU), IIT offers exceptional preparation for professions that
require technological sophistication. Through a committed
faculty and close personal attention, IIT provides a challenging
academic program focused by the rigor of the real world.
