Lippard is affiliated with MIT’s Center for Cancer Research and is well known for his work on the mechanism of the anti-cancer drug cisplatin, which contains platinum and is primarily used to treat testicular cancer and ovarian cancer.  His lab is currently working on designing more effective platinum anti-tumor agents.

The Lippard group also determined the structure of the component proteins of methane monooxygenase, an enzyme from aerobic bacteria that convert methane (natural gas) and oxygen to liquid methanol and water in the first step of their life process. They elucidated several key steps in the activation of oxygen and methane at a closely spaced pair of iron atoms in the enzyme. This chemistry is closely related to that used in bioremediation, processes by which microorganisms are employed to clean the environment. Examples include removal of trichloroethylene from drinking water and the cleanup of oil spills from the land. Subsequently, structures of the related hydroxylase enzymes from toluene/o-xylene monooxygenase and phenol hydroxylase, the latter in complex with its regulatory protein, were determined. Oxygenated intermediates in the catalytic cycles of the latter two enzymes have been identified.

Lippard recently developed a fluorescent sensor that monitors nitric oxide, a molecule that plays critical roles in the human body, from destroying invading microorganisms to relaying neuronal signals. The molecule had long eluded scientists because it often exists in minute concentrations and for only short periods of time. The sensor allows scientists to view nitric oxide in living cells.  In related work, Lippard has also developed fluorescent and MRI sensors to detect and understand the roles of mobile zinc in the brain.

In 2006, Lippard received the National Medal of Science, the highest science honor in the United States. He was cited for “pioneering research in bioinorganic chemistry, including the interaction of metal compounds with DNA, preparation of synthetic models for metalloproteins, and structural and mechanistic studies of methane monooxygenase."

Lippard has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also received several awards from the American Chemical Society — the ACS Award in Inorganic Chemistry in 1987, the ACS Award for Distinguished Service in Inorganic Chemistry in 1994, the Bader Award in Bioinorganic or Bioorganic Chemistry in 2004 and several local section awards including the 1995 William H. Nichols Medal of the New York Section of the ACS and the Theodore W. Richards Medal, Northeastern Section of the ACS, in 2002

In 1985 he won the Henry J. Albert Award of the International Precious Metals Institute for his work on platinum metals and their interactions with nucleic acids, and in 1988 he received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior U.S. Scientist Award.

Lippard was born Oct. 12, 1940 in Pittsburgh, Pa., and earned his bachelor’s degree at Haverford College in 1962. After earning his Ph.D. from MIT in 1965, he spent a year as a postdoctoral fellow at MIT. He then joined the faculty at Columbia University as an assistant professor in 1966, was promoted to associate professor in 1969 and full professor in 1972.