| more general categories |
information about this item |
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| 10. Noble Prize |
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10. Noble Prize |
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Physiology or Medicine (216) |
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| 11. Award Year |
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11. Award Year |
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1968 (7) |
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| 12. Winner Type |
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12. Winner Type |
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Person (904) |
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| 13. Gender |
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13. Gender |
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Male (853) |
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| 14. Birth Year |
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14. Birth Year |
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1922 (11) |
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| 15. Place of Birth |
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15. Place of Birth |
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Urbana (1) |
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| 16. Death Year |
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16. Death Year |
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1993 (5) |
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| 17. Place of Death |
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17. Place of Death |
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Los Gatos (1) |
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| 19. Given Name |
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19. Given Name |
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R (80) |
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| 20. Family Name |
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20. Family Name |
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H (72) |
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| 21. Shared Given Name |
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21. Shared Given Name |
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Robert (29) |
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| 23. Religion |
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23. Religion |
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Source data not available (465) |
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| 24. Age at Award Time |
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24. Age at Award Time |
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47 (22) |
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| 32. Occupations |
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32. Occupations |
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Biological Scientists (181) |
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| 34. Citizens |
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34. Citizens |
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United States (307) |
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| 37. Worked for College or University |
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37. Worked for College or University |
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Cornell University (8) |
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| 42. Affilliation with College or University |
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42. Affilliation with College or University |
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Alumni (11) |
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Alumni (18) |
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Long-term academic staff (18) |
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Short-term academic staff (40) |
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Short-term academic staff (8) |
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| 43. Affilliation with Secondary School |
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43. Affilliation with Secondary School |
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Urbana High School (2) |
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| 44. Memberships |
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44. Memberships |
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American Academy of Arts and Sciences (531) |
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American Association for the Advancement of Science (95) |
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| 45. Other Awards |
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45. Other Awards |
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Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (84) |
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John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (102) |
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NAS Award in Molecular Biology (14) |
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| complete name: |
Robert Holley |
| nobel prize: |
medicine |
| award year: |
1968 |
| together with: |
Har Gobind Khorana |
| together with: |
Marshall Warren Nirenberg |
| prize share: |
Prize share: 1/3 |
| rational: |
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1968 was awarded jointly to Robert W. Holley, Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg "for their interpretation of the genetic code and its function in protein synthesis." |
| biography: |
Biography |
| laureate facts: |
Facts |
| laureate lecture: |
Lecture |
| given name: |
Robert |
| family name: |
Holley |
| occupation: |
chemist |
| occupation: |
biochemist |
| field of work: |
biochemistry |
| work location: |
Cornell University, 300 Day Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, United States of America |
| description: |
Robert Holley was an American biochemist. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 (with Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall Warren Nirenberg) for describing the structure of alanine transfer RNA, linking DNA and protein synthesis. Holley was born in Urbana, Illinois, and graduated from Urbana High School in 1938. He went on to study chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1942 and commencing his PhD studies in organic chemistry at Cornell University. During World War II Holley spent two years working under Professor Vincent du Vigneaud at Cornell University Medical College, where he was involved in the first chemical synthesis of penicillin. Holley completed his PhD studies in 1947.*USDA ARS. Following his graduate studies Holley remained associated with Cornell. He became an Assistant Professor of organic chemistry in 1948, and was appointed as Professor of Biochemistry in 1962. He began his research on RNA after spending a year's sabbatical (1955-1956) studying with James F. Bonner at the California Institute of Technology. Holley's research on RNA focused first on isolating transfer RNA (tRNA), and later on determining the sequence and structure of alanine tRNA, the molecule that incorporates the amino acid alanine into proteins. Holley's team of researchers determined the tRNA's structure by using two ribonucleases to split the tRNA molecule into pieces. Each enzyme split the molecule at location points for specific nucleotides. By a process of "puzzling out" the structure of the pieces split by the two different enzymes, then comparing the pieces from both enzyme splits, the team eventually determined the entire structure of the molecule. The structure was completed in 1964, and was a key discovery in explaining the synthesis of proteins from messenger RNA. It was also the first nucleotide sequence of a ribonucleic acid ever determined. Holley was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1968 for this discovery, and Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall W. Nirenberg were also awarded the prize that year for contributions to the understanding of protein synthesis. Using the Holley team's method, other scientists determined the structures of the remaining tRNA's. A few years later the method was modified to help track the sequence of nucleotides in various bacterial, plant, and human viruses. In 1968 Holley became a resident fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. |
| image copyright: |
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive. |
| image citation: |
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1968. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2018. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1968/summary/> |
| date birth: |
1922 |
| date death: |
1993 |
| usual name: |
Robert Holley |
