Biography[change | change source]
Gilbert was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on March 21, 1932. Gilbert attended Harvard University for undergraduate and graduate studies, earning a first degree in chemistry and physics in 1953 and a master's degree in physics in 1954.
Gilbert returned to Harvard in 1957 and promoted in 1968 to professor of biochemistry. In 1969, Gilbert was given Harvard's Ledlie Prize. In 1972, Gilbert was named American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology.
Research findings[change | change source]
Gilbert first proposed the existence of introns and exons and explained the evolution of introns in a seminal 1978 "News and Views" paper published in Nature. In 1986, Gilbert used the phrase RNA world hypothesis for the origin of life. 'RNA World' was a concept first proposed by Carl Woese in 1967.
Awards[change | change source]
Gilbert was given the 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Frederick Sanger and Paul Berg. Gilbert and Sanger were recognized for their pioneering work in devising methods for determining the sequence of nucleotides in a nucleic acid.