Human interferon beta (left) is released by lymphocytes in response to pathogens to trigger the immune system. Chorismate mutase (right) catalyzes (speeds up) the production of the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. Fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (left) and its inhibitor MB06322 (CS-917) were studied by Lipscomb's group in a collaboration, which included Metabasis Therapeutics, Inc., acquired by Ligand Pharmaceuticals in 2010, exploring the possibility of finding a treatment for type 2 diabetes, as the MB06322 inhibitor slows the production of sugar by fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase. Lipscomb's group also contributed to an understanding of concanavalin A (low resolution structure), glucagon, and carbonic anhydrase (theoretical studies). Subsequent Nobel Prize winner Thomas A. Steitz was a doctoral student in Lipscomb's laboratory. Under Lipscomb's direction, after the training task of determining the structure of the small molecule methyl ethylene phosphate, Steitz made contributions to determining the atomic structures of carboxypeptidase A and aspartate carbamoyltransferase. Steitz was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for determining the even larger structure of the large 50S ribosomal subunit, leading to an understanding of possible medical treatments. Subsequent Nobel Prize winner Ada Yonath, who shared the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas A. Steitz and Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, spent some time in Lipscomb's lab where both she and Steitz were inspired to pursue later their own very large structures. This was while she was a postdoctoral student at MIT in 1970. Other results The mineral lipscombite (picture at right) was named after Professor Lipscomb by the mineralogist John Gruner who first made it artificially. Low-temperature x-ray diffraction was pioneered in Lipscomb's laboratory at about the same time as parallel work in Isadore Fankuchen's laboratory at the then Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. Lipscomb began by studying compounds of nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, and other substances that are solid only below liquid nitrogen temperatures, but other advantages eventually made low-temperatures a normal procedure. Keeping the crystal cold during data collection produces a less-blurry 3-D electron-density map because the atoms have less thermal motion. Crystals may yield good data in the x-ray beam longer because x-ray damage may be reduced during data collection and because the solvent may evaporate more slowly, which for example may be important for large biochemical molecules whose crystals often have a high percentage of water. Other important compounds were studied by Lipscomb and his students. Among these are hydrazine, nitric oxide, metal-dithiolene complexes, methyl ethylene phosphate, mercury amides, (NO)2, crystalline hydrogen fluoride,