Walter Gilbert

Walter Gilbert (1932- ) is an American physicist, biochemist, entrepreneur, and molecular biology pioneer. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and educated at Harvard University and the University of Cambridge, later joining the faculty at Harvard.

He was awarded the 1980 Nobel Prize in chemistry with Paul Berg and Frederick Sanger for their work on nucleotide sequences, and was one of the founders, and the first chairman of the board of directors of the biotech start-up company Biogen.

Gilbert's [Nobel Prize autobiography].

His approach to the first synthesis of insulin lost out to Genentech's approach which used genes built up from the nucleotides rather than from natural sources.