Richard Roberts

Dr Richard J. Roberts is Chief Scientific Officer at New England Biolabs in Ipswich, Massachusetts, United States. He first joined the company as chief consultant in 1975 and later moved there permanently in 1992. He received his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1968 from Sheffield University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

While at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory from 1972 to 1992, he began work on the newly discovered Type II restriction enzymes. His laboratory discovered more than 70 percent of the first 100 enzymes described. Studies of transcription in Adenovirus-2 led to the discovery of split genes and mRNA splicing in 1977, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993. Since then, Dr Roberts has been involved in organising a number of Nobel initiatives to correct scientific misunderstandings and promote humanitarian causes, such as supporting the use of genetically modified organism techniques to improve plant breeding practices.