Sharp, Phillip Allen (1944-…), is an American biologist who made important discoveries about how the hereditary material DNA is organized in genes. For his work, Sharp shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with British biologist Richard J. Roberts, who made similar discoveries working independently.
Until the mid-1970’s, biologists believed that DNA was an uninterrupted string of genes. In 1977, Sharp and Roberts separately discovered split genes, genes in which active segments of DNA are interrupted by inactive segments. The inactive segments, called introns, do not contain genetic instructions. Many scientists believe that split genes and introns play a role in creating genetic variations. The discovery has also given scientists a better understanding of how some hereditary diseases develop.
Sharp was born in Falmouth, Kentucky. He graduated from Union College in 1966 and received a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana in 1969. He held a research fellowship in biophysical chemistry and molecular biology at the California Institute of Technology from 1969 to 1971. From 1971 to 1974, he worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, doing research in virology and molecular biology. He joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in 1974, becoming a professor of biology in 1979. He served as director of M.I.T.’s Center for Cancer Research from 1985 to 1991, when he became head of the M.I.T. Department of Biology.
Sharp is also involved in private industry. In 1978, he helped found a company called Biogen, Incorporated, now based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company uses genetic engineering techniques to manufacture interferons, proteins normally produced by the body in response to viral infections. Sharp serves as chairman of Biogen’s scientific board.
