Researcher

Walter Gilbert

Profile

Walter Gilbert is an American physicist turned molecular biologist at Harvard University who received the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Frederick Sanger for the development of DNA sequencing methods. Gilbert and Allan Maxam developed the Maxam-Gilbert chemical cleavage method for sequencing DNA, which alongside Sanger's dideoxy method enabled the first practical DNA sequencing and launched the genomics era. Gilbert's earlier foundational work in molecular biology included the first direct demonstration that the lac repressor is a protein, and the physical isolation of the lac repressor from E. coli cells. He also provided early evidence for split genes and introns, contributing to the RNA splicing paradigm. Gilbert proposed the RNA world hypothesis in 1986, coining the term and providing a theoretical framework for the origin of life based on self-replicating RNA. He co-founded Biogen (now Biogen Inc.), one of the first biotechnology companies, in 1978. His entrepreneurial involvement in biotech, combined with his foundational contributions to sequencing and molecular biology, makes him one of the most influential figures in the biotechnology industry's intellectual heritage.

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