When was Robert W. Holley born?

Robert W. Holley was born on 28 January 1922 in Urbana.

Where did Robert W. Holley study?

Robert W. Holley was educated at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, Urbana High School, Weill Cornell Medicine.

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Robert W. Holley

American biochemist (1922–1993)

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Robert William Holley (January 28, 1922 – February 11, 1993) 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.

Quick facts

Born: 28 January 1922 wd
Place of birth: Urbana wd
Died: 11 February 1993 wd
Place of death: Los Gatos wd
Citizenship: United States wd
Occupation: biochemist, chemist wd
Education: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, Urbana High School, Weill Cornell Medicine wd

Awards wd

Guggenheim Fellowship
Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1965)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1968)
NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1967)

About

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.

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 group of researchers include Elizabeth Beach Keller, who developed the cloverleaf model that describes transfer RNA, during the…

Questions

When was Robert W. Holley born?: Robert W. Holley was born on 28 January 1922 in Urbana.
Where did Robert W. Holley study?: Robert W. Holley was educated at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Cornell University, Urbana High School, Weill Cornell Medicine.

Sources

Last updated 31 October 2026 · facts checked 14 November 2026

Cite this page

"Robert W. Holley". DigiNepal. Last updated 31 October 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/robert-w-holley. Retrieved 15 November 2026.

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Text from the Wikipedia article Robert W. Holley, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Robert Holley.jpg — Sol Goldberg, Public domain.

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