Up for auction the "Nobel Prize in Medicine" Richard J. Roberts Hand Signed First Day Cover Dated 1972.
ES-4412E
Sir
Richard John Roberts (born
6 September 1943) FRS 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. 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. 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 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. 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. 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 (https://patient-innovation.com),
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