Phillip A. SharpBorn 6 Jun 1944.Phillip Allen Sharpe is an American molecular biologist, awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, along with Richard J. Roberts, for his independent discovery that individual genes are often interrupted by long sections of DNA that do not encode protein structure. According to the Nobel citation, their "discovery has changed our view on how genes in higher organisms develop during evolution. The discovery also led to the prediction of a new genetic process, namely that of splicing, which is essential for expressing the genetic information." The discovery of split genes has been of fundamental importance for today's basic research in biology, as well as for research into the development of cancer and other diseases. |