Sunday, October 19, 2003
YOUNGSTOWN -- Dr. James Watson, co-winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in physiology and medicine, will speak at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 5 at Youngstown State University.
Watson's appearance is part of the Skeggs Lecture Series at YSU. The lecture in the Chestnut Room of Kilcawley Center is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required.
Fifty years ago, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins and Watson uncovered the basic configuration of the DNA molecule and determined how nucleotides are arranged. Subsequent research based on their findings has led to more discoveries about the growth and maintenance of individual organisms.
Watson was head of the National Institutes of Health's Human Genome Project from 1988-92, and he received an honorary knighthood from Great Britain in 2001. He is president of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y.
Watson, whom Time magazine listed as "One of the Great Minds of the Century," is the second Nobel Prize laureate to visit Youngstown this fall. Author Toni Morrison spoke to about 2,000 people in September, also part of the Skeggs Series.
The lectures series is named after Leonard T. Skeggs, who first came to Youngstown in 1919 as education secretary of the YMCA. In 1924 he became general secretary, a position he held until his death in 1933. The lectures bring to YSU outstanding speakers who are authorities in their respective fields.