Gilbert, Walter

Gilbert, Walter, 1932–, American molecular biologist, b. Boston, Ph.D. Cambridge Univ., 1957. In 1968 he became a professor of biophysics at Harvard, where he had taught since 1959. He helped formulate a method for determining the sequence of bases in nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) that made it possible to manufacture genetic material in the laboratory. For his role in this work, he shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Frederick Sanger and Paul Berg.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

• • Cite
  • Print