Sir Richard John Roberts (born September 6, 1943 in Derby) is an English biochemist and molecular biologist. He was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Allen Sharp for the discovery of introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism of gene-splicing.
Roberts is the son of a motor mechanic and housewife. When he was 4, the family moved to Bath. In Bath, he attended City of Bath Boys' School. As a child he at first wante...
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Sir Richard John Roberts (born September 6, 1943 in Derby) is an English biochemist and molecular biologist. He was awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Phillip Allen Sharp for the discovery of introns in eukaryotic DNA and the mechanism of gene-splicing.
Roberts is the son of a motor mechanic and housewife. When he was 4, the family moved to Bath. In Bath, he attended City of Bath Boys' School. As a child he at first wanted to be a detective and then, when given a chemistry set, a chemist. He failed his Physics A-level exam on his first attempt.
In 2005, a multi-million pound expansion to the chemistry department at the University of Sheffield, where he had been a student, was named after him. A refurbished science department at Beechen Cliff School (previously City of Bath Boys' School) was also named after Roberts, who had donated a substantial sum of his Nobel prize winnings to the school.
He was knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
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