Gilbert, Walter

Gilbert, Walter

▪ American biologist
born March 21, 1932, Boston, Mass., U.S.

      American molecular biologist who was awarded a share (with Paul Berg (Berg, Paul) and Frederick Sanger (Sanger, Frederick)) of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1980 for his development of a method for determining the sequence of nucleotide links in the chainlike molecules of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA).

      Gilbert graduated from Harvard University with a degree in physics in 1953 and took a Ph.D. in mathematics from Cambridge University in 1957. He joined the Harvard faculty as a lecturer in physics in 1958 and, as his interests changed, advanced to assistant professor of physics in 1959, associate professor of biophysics in 1964, and professor of biochemistry in 1968. In 1972 he became American Cancer Society professor of molecular biology at Harvard.

      In the late 1960s Gilbert confirmed the theory of Jacques Monod and Franƈois Jacob that “repressor proteins” control the genes responsible for beginning and ending protein synthesis in the cell. He was able to demonstrate the existence of a repressor in the bacterium Escherichia coli that prevents a gene from manufacturing a certain enzyme except when lactose is present. In the 1970s Gilbert developed a widely used technique of using gel electrophoresis to read the nucleotide sequences of DNA segments. The same method was developed independently by Sanger.

      In 1979 Gilbert, while retaining his affiliation with Harvard, joined a group of other scientists and businessmen to form Biogen, a commercial genetic-engineering research corporation. Gilbert resigned from Biogen in 1984 and, while continuing to teach at Harvard, became a chief proponent of the Human Genome Project, a government-funded effort to compile a complete map of the gene sequences in human DNA.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • GILBERT, WALTER — (1932– ), U.S. molecular biologist and Nobel laureate. Gilbert was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard University (B.A. 1953, M.A. 1954) and received his doctorate from Cambridge University in mathematics in 1957. Appointed assistant… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Gilbert,Walter — Gilbert, Walter. Born 1932. American biologist. He shared a 1980 Nobel Prize for developing methods of mapping the structure and function of DNA. * * * …   Universalium

  • Gilbert , Walter — (1932–) American molecular biologist Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Gilbert was educated at Harvard and at Cambridge University, England, where he obtained his PhD in physics in 1957. He returned to America to take up an appointment in… …   Scientists

  • Gilbert, Walter — ► (n. 1932) Biólogo estadounidense. Fue premio Nobel de Química en 1980, compartido con F. Sanper y P. Berg, por sus trabajos sobre los ácidos nucleicos …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Walter Gilbert — (Boston, EEUU 1932) es un físico, bioquímico y profesor universitario estadounidense galardonado con el Premio Nobel de Química del año 1980. Contenido …   Wikipedia Español

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