The 1993–1994 Killian Award lecturer was Phillip A. Sharp, then head of the Department of Biology and later, Institute Professor and Nobel laureate. A scientist internationally recognized for his contributions to molecular biology, Professor Sharp and his laboratory were commended by the selection committee for providing “some of the most insightful and definitive work on the complex but robust molecular mechanisms that make [RNA] splicing so common in nature. He has also succeeded in identifying quite a few of the proteins or so-called ‘transcription factors’ that govern whether and when a gene gets read out into RNA at all. And he has been involved with manipulating the genes themselves via various artificial splicings and cloning, both in the laboratory and in the biotech industry.” Read more at MIT News.