Phillip A. Sharp has conducted research into the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA --the chemical blueprint that synthesizes proteins) that has altered previous views on the mechanism of genetic change. For his work in this area, Sharp was presented with the 1977 Nobel Prize in medicine along with Richard J. Roberts. Sharp was born in Falmouth, Kentucky, on June 6, 1944 to Katherin Colvin and Joseph Walter Sharp. He attended Union College in Barbourville, Kentucky, where he received a B.A. degree in chemistry and mathematics in 1966. Sharp earned his Ph.D. degree from the University of Illinois in 1969.

Sharp and Richard J. Roberts discovered in 1977 that, in some higher organisms, genes may be comprised of more than one segment, separated by material which apparently plays no part in the creation of the proteins. Previously, most scientists believed that genes were continuous sections of DNA and that the string of coding...