Richard J. Roberts

Facts

Richard J. Roberts

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Richard J. Roberts
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1993

Born: 6 September 1943, Derby, United Kingdom

Affiliation at the time of the award: New England Biolabs, Beverly, MA, USA

Prize motivation: “for their discoveries of split genes”

Prize share: 1/2

Work

An organism's genes lie within the chain of nucleotides found inside DNA molecules. The genetic information contained within DNA is transferred to messenger RNA, and is then converted during the formation of proteins. An RNA molecule's chain contains both elements needed for protein formation, exons, and parts that are not needed, introns. In 1977 and independently of one another, Richard Roberts and Philip Sharp both successfully demonstrated how RNA can be divided up into introns and exons, after which the exons can be joined together. This can occur in different ways, giving a gene the potential to form a number of different proteins.

To cite this section
MLA style: Richard J. Roberts – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2024. Wed. 13 Nov 2024. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1993/roberts/facts/>

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