Phillip A. Sharp
Institute Professor
areas of expertise: molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry, cancer, gene regulation, regulation of transcription/rna splicing, rna interference, regulation of messenger rna synthesis in mammalian cells identification of factors responsible for controlling initiation or elongation of transcription, studies of the mechanisms for rna splicing and polyadenylation development of methods for genetic analysis of mammalian cells, short interfering rna, microrna biology and applications, gene regulation by micrornas in cancer, therapeutic applications of regulatory rnas, splicing of introns from nuclear precursor rna
Phillip A. Sharp is an Institute Professor at MIT. Much of his scientific work has been conducted at MIT's Center for Cancer Research (now the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research), which he joined in 1974 and directed from 1985-1991. He subsequently led the Department of Biology from 1991-1999 before assuming the directorship of the McGovern Institute from 2000-2004.
Sharp has authored more than 350 scientific papers. He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, and has served on many advisory boards for the government, academic institutions, scientific societies and companies. His awards include the Gairdner Foundation International Award, General Motors Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize for Cancer Research, the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, the National Medal of Science and the inaugural Double Helix Medal from CSHL. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
A native of Kentucky, Sharp earned a BA degree from Union College, Kentucky in 1966, and a PhD in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana in 1969. He did his postdoctoral training at the California Institute of Technology, where he studied the molecular biology of plasmids from bacteria in Professor Norman Davidson's laboratory. Prior to joining MIT, he was senior scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. In 1978, he co-founded Biogen (now Biogen Idec), and in 2002 he co-founded Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage therapeutics company.
request an interview: Sarah McDonnell | 617-253-8923 | s_mcd@mit.edu