Steven Lanier McKnight is a professor and former chair of the department of biochemistry at

UT Southwestern The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern or UTSW) is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 18,800 employees, more than 2,900 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient vis ...

. His research is in the area of

transcriptional regulation In molecular biology and genetics, transcriptional regulation is the means by which a cell regulates the conversion of DNA to RNA (transcription), thereby orchestrating gene activity. A single gene can be regulated in a range of ways, from alt ...

. McKnight received his bachelor's degree from

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1974 and his PhD from

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...

in 1977. He was a

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fil ...

Investigator from 1988 to 1992.

Criticism

As president of the

American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) is a learned society that was founded on December 26, 1906, at a meeting organized by John Jacob Abel (Johns Hopkins University). The roots of the society were in the American Phy ...

, McKnight published messages in the society's newsletter critical of young scientists, calling them "riff-raff" and saying that "The average scientist today is not of the quality of our predecessors”. He complains that biomedical research now attracts researchers who “never would have survived as scientists in the 1960s and 1970s", and that the funding crisis can be attributed to the NIH review committees being “undoubtedly contaminated by riff-raff”. The month prior, he had derided young scientists for being uninformed on the historic methods of biochemistry. These opinions attracted media attention and criticism from many in the scientific community. Future of Research, an advocacy group led by

Jessica Polka Jessica Polka is a biochemist and the Executive Director of ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology), a non-profit initiative promoting innovation and transparency via preprints and open peer review. She was one of the organizers ...

that supports junior researchers satirised McKnight's comments by selling "Riff-raff" T-shirts, using the proceeds to fund the 2015 Future of Research conference.

Awards

*1989

Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award The Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award was a scientific award presented annually by the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) and sponsored by the Eli Lilly and Company and its subsidiary Elanco (which became an independent company in 201 ...

*1991 Award in Molecular Biology of National Academy of Sciences *1992 Member of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

*1992 Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

* 2004

National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award is a research initiative first announced in 2004 designed to support individual scientists' biomedical research. The focus is specifically on "pioneering" research that is highly innovative ...

*2007 Fellow of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

*2014

Wiley Prize The Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences is intended to recognize breakthrough research in pure or applied life science research that is distinguished by its excellence, originality and impact on our understanding of biological systems and processes. ...

*2020

Welch Award The Welch Award in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Robert A. Welch Foundation, based in Houston, Texas, to encourage and recognise basic chemical research for the benefit of mankind. The award, which has been given since 1972, is one of the ...

Welch Award 2020
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McKnight, Steven Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American biochemists University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center faculty University of Texas at Austin College of Natural Sciences alumni University of Virginia alumni Members of the National Academy of Medicine