In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1944
- Birthplace
- Falmouth, KY, USA
- Country
- United States
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Discovery of split genes and investigation of RNA processing
Why this life matters
The historical work exposed a different organisation of genetic information and made the processing steps themselves an important subject for further investigation.
Timeline
Key moments
Birth
Born in Falmouth, KY, USA.
Nobel recognition
Received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
From physical chemistry to molecular genetics
Phillip Sharp was born in rural Kentucky in 1944. His Nobel autobiography recalls a farming community and public-school education before college and graduate study in chemistry at Illinois. His doctoral work treated DNA as a polymer using physical and statistical ideas. A postdoctoral move to Caltech in 1969 brought him into experimental molecular biology and electron-microscope methods for comparing nucleic acids. The transition gave him tools for asking how a genome's sequence relates to the RNA messages made from it.
A message assembled from separated regions
A 1977 paper by Susan Berget, Claire Moore and Sharp investigated adenovirus late messenger RNA. Electron-microscope observations of RNAโDNA hybrids connected portions of a mature message with separated positions on viral DNA. The authors proposed that multiple segments were joined during maturation of a larger precursor RNA. This challenged the assumption that a mature message must correspond to one uninterrupted stretch of its gene. The collaboration is important: the discovery was an experimental comparison performed by a research team, not simply a new term for gene structure.
Sources for this section: [3]
An influential distinction between transcript and product
Sharp shared the 1993 medicine prize with Richard Roberts for split genes. Their independent investigations helped establish a distinction between an initial RNA transcript and the processed message used for protein synthesis. His contribution is clearest when that distinction is preserved without treating all genes as identically interrupted or every possible RNA-processing pattern as demonstrated by one viral example. The historical work exposed a different organisation of genetic information and made the processing steps themselves an important subject for further investigation.
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Phillip A. Sharp
- What is Phillip A. Sharp known for?
- Discovery of split genes and investigation of RNA processing.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Richard J. Roberts
Compare the related experimental question and research career.
- Thomas R. Cech
Compare the related experimental question and research career.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Nobel Prize OutreachPhillip A. Sharp โ Facts
Source scope: Birth/death and award metadata; short official work summary.
- 2. Nobel FoundationPhillip A. Sharp โ Biographical
Source scope: Selected historical passages, as recorded in the research evidence ledger; not a full-document reading claim.
- 3. Berget, Moore and Sharp / PNASSpliced segments at the5โฒ terminus of adenovirus2 late mRNA
Source scope: Complete indexed abstract: RNAโDNA hybrids, separated genomic sites and multiple-splicing proposal. Exact positions/nucleotide numbers omitted; not an invented reanalysis of micrographs.
