biology

Richard J. Roberts

Richard J. Roberts is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Richard J. Roberts rather than just read about it. In short: Sir Richard John Roberts (born 6 September 1943) is a British 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.

Key takeaways

Richard J. Roberts belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Richard J. Roberts to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Richard J. Roberts from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Sir Richard John Roberts (born 6 September 1943) is a British 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. He currently works at New England Biolabs.

Early life and education Roberts was born in Derby, the son of Edna (Allsop) and John Roberts, an auto mechanic. When he was four, Roberts' 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. In 1965 he graduated from the University of Sheffield with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry followed by a PhD in 1969. His thesis involved phytochemical studies of neoflavonoids and isoflavonoids.

Career and research During 1969–1972, he did postdoctoral research at Harvard University. before moving to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was hired by James Dewey Watson, a co-discoverer of the structure of DNA and a fellow Nobel laureate. In this period he also visited the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology for the first time, working alongside Fred Sanger. In 1977, he published his discovery of RNA splicing. In 1992, he moved to New England Biolabs. The following year, he shared a Nobel Prize with his former colleague at Cold Spring Harbor Phillip Allen Sharp. Roberts's discovery of the alternative splicing of genes, in particular, has had a profound impact on the study and applications of molecular biology. The realisation that individual genes could exist as separate, disconnected segments within longer strands of DNA first arose in his 1977 study of adenovirus, one of the viruses responsible for causing the common cold. Robert's research in this field resulted in a fundamental shift in our understanding of genetics, and has led to the discovery of split genes in higher organisms, including human beings.

Awards and honours In 1992, Roberts received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine at Uppsala University, Sweden. After becoming a Nobel laureate in 1993 he was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Science) by the University of Bath in 1994. Roberts also received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1994. In 2021 he was awarded the Lomonosov Gold Medal of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2025, he became an honorary member of the academic staff of D'Annunzio University of Chieti–Pescara, Italy. Roberts was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1995 and a member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) in the same year. In 2005, a multimillion-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. Roberts is an atheist and was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto. He was knighted in the 2008 Birthday Honours. Roberts is a member of the Advisory Board of Patient Innovation, a nonprofit, international, multilingual, free venue for patients and caregivers of any disease to share their innovations. Roberts has been a keynote speaker at the Congress of Future Medical Leaders (2014, 2015, 2016, 2020). He also is the chairman of The Laureate Science Alliance, a non-profit supporting research worldwide. In 2016, Roberts and other Nobelists composed and signed a "Laureates Letter Supporting Precision Agriculture (GMOs)" addressed to the leaders of Greenpeace, the United Nations and global governments and Sir Roberts has advocated for Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in general and Golden Rice in particular to advance health in developing countries, noting the high safety record of GM foods.

References

External links Richard J. Roberts on Nobelprize.org including the Nobel Lecture An Amazing Distortion in DNA Induced by a Methyltransferase

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Richard J. Roberts

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Richard J. Roberts claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Richard J. Roberts before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Richard J. Roberts ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Richard J. Roberts

In research: Richard J. Roberts appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Richard J. Roberts in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Richard J. Roberts is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1943 births, 20th-century British biochemists, 20th-century British biologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Richard J. Roberts outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Richard J. Roberts in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Richard J. Roberts means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Richard J. Roberts out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Richard J. Roberts in simple terms?

Why does Richard J. Roberts matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Richard J. Roberts?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Richard J. Roberts.