Richard J. Roberts—Nobel Laureate for Discovery of Split Genes

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (Life Sciences)

English biochemist Richard John Roberts shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with American biochemist Phillip Allen Sharp (1944) for their independent discovery of split genes. Roberts worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, and Sharp did his research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Mass. Each announced his research results in 1977. Their discovery transformed the model for understanding how proteins are synthesized from genes. The discovery of split genes led to the prediction of a new genetic process, gene splicing, which is essential for expressing genetic information. Richard J. Roberts was born on September 6, 1943, in Derby, England. He was awarded the BS degree from the University of Sheffield in 1965. He remained at the university for postgraduate work and earned a PhD degree in organic chemistry in 1968. In 1969, Roberts left England for training in the United States. He became a research fellow at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass, where he worked until 1972. In 1972, he became a senior staff investigator at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in southeastern New York, and in 1987, he became assistant director of the laboratory. He left the laboratory in 1992 to become research director of eukaryotic (nucleated cells) research at New England Biolab, a biotechnology firm in Beverly, Mass. Roberts did his Nobel Prize–winning research on the adenovirus, the virus that causes the common cold, at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1977, Roberts and his team of Thomas Broker, Louise Chow, and Richard Gelinas established that the genes of the adenovirus are discontinuous: the segments of DNA that code for protein are interrupted by lengthy stretches of DNA that do not contain genetic information. The coding segments are called exons and the noncoding ones, introns. Also in 1977, a research team supervised by Sharp at MIT made the same discovery that Roberts did. Previously, on the basis of studies of bacterial DNA, biologists believed that genes consisted of unbroken stretches of DNA, all of which encoded protein structure. Since the discovery by Roberts and Sharp, it has been established that the discontinuous gene structure is the most frequent structure found in higher organisms, including humans. In addition to having important implications for the study of genetic diseases, this structure is believed to drive evolution by allowing information from different parts of the gene to be brought together in new combinations. The general view is that evolution occurs through the accumulation of mutations or minor alterations in the genetic material that produces a gradual change in the overall organism. However, gene splitting suggests that another mechanism may be important in the evolution of higher organisms—the rearrangement of genetic information into new protein-coding units to speed up evolution and to respond more flexibly to environmental challenges. Errors in gene splicing are known to be the basis of several disorders, including β-thalassemia (a form of anemia) and chronic myelogenous leukemia. Besides the Nobel Prize, Roberts has received many awards and honors. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1979, and in 2000, he was honored on a stamp issued by the Palau Islands.