Editing Walter Gilbert (section)

==Career and research==
Gilbert returned to Harvard in 1956 and was appointed assistant professor of physics in 1959.<ref name=Shampo/> Gilbert's wife Celia worked for [[James Watson]], leading Gilbert to become interested in molecular biology.  Watson and Gilbert ran their laboratory jointly through most of the 1960s, until Watson left for [[Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory]].<ref name="Watson">{{ cite book | title = Genes, Girls and Gamow | last = Watson | first = James D. | year = 2003 }}</ref> In 1964 he was promoted to associate professor of biophysics and promoted again in 1968 to professor of biochemistry.<ref name=Shampo/>

Gilbert is a co-founder of the biotech start-up companies [[Biogen]], with Kenneth Murray, Phillip Sharp and Charles Weissman<ref>{{Cite web|last=Stendahl|first=Max|date=May 31, 2018|title=40 years later, Biogen's founders Get the Band Back Together|url=https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2018/05/31/40-years-later-biogen-s-founders-get-the-band-back.html|website=Boston Business Journal}}</ref> and [[Myriad Genetics]] with Dr. Mark Skolnick and [[Kevin Kimberlin]]<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Davies|first1=Kevin|title=Breakthrough: The Race to Find the Breast Cancer Gene|last2=White|first2=Michael|publisher=Wiley|year=1996|pages=199}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|date=April 25, 2018|title=MYRIAD: PIONEERING PREDICTIVE MEDICINE|url=https://pivotcenter.utah.edu/success-stories/myriad-pioneering-predictive-medicine/|website=University of Utah}}</ref> where he was the first chairman on their respective boards of directors. Gilbert left his position at Harvard to run Biogen as CEO, but was later asked to resign by the company's board of directors.<ref name="Kanigel">{{ cite journal | title = The Genome Project | journal = The New York Times Magazine | date = December 13, 1987 | last = Kanigel | first = Robert| pages = 44, 98–101, 106 | pmid = 11658922 }}</ref> He is a member of the Board of Scientific Governors at [[The Scripps Research Institute]]. Gilbert has served as the chairman of the [[Harvard Society of Fellows]].

In 1996, Gilbert and [[Stuart B. Levy]] founded Paratek Pharmaceuticals. Gilbert served as chairman until 2014.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://paratekpharma.com/about/founders/#dr-gilbert |title = Founders}}</ref>

Gilbert was an early proponent of sequencing the [[human genome]]. At a March 1986 meeting in [[Santa Fe New Mexico]] he proclaimed "The total human sequence is the grail of human genetics". In 1987, he proposed starting a company called Genome Corporation to sequence the genome and sell access to the information.<ref name="Kanigel"/>  In an opinion piece in ''Nature'' in 1991, he envisioned completion of the human genome sequence transforming biology into a field in which computer databases would be as essential as laboratory reagents<ref>{{cite journal | title = Towards a paradigm shift in biology | last=Gilbert | first=Walter | journal=Nature | year=1991 |volume=349 | number=6305 | page=99 |bibcode = 1991Natur.349...99G |doi = 10.1038/349099a0 | pmid=1986314 | s2cid=1173431 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

Gilbert returned to Harvard in 1985.<ref name="Johnson">{{ cite news | last= Johnson | first = Carolyn Y. | title = A physicist, biologist, Nobel laureate, CEO, and now, artist | journal = The Boston Globe | date = March 13, 2015 | url = https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/03/12/wally-gilbert-physicist-biologist-nobel-laureate-ceo-and-now-artist/b3OsCNVvHZOYCi48Dz4z6H/story.html}}</ref> Gilbert was an outspoken critic of [[David Baltimore]] in the handling of the scientific fraud accusations against [[Thereza Imanishi-Kari]].<ref>{{ cite journal | title = Inquiry lacking due process | journal = The New York Times Books | last = Kolata | first = Gina | date = June 25, 1996 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/09/20/specials/baltimore-process.html }}</ref> Gilbert also joined the early [[HIV/AIDS denialism|controversy over the cause of AIDS]].<ref>{{ cite journal | journal = Science | title= The Duesberg Phenomenon | last = Cohen | first = Jon | volume = 266 | issue= 5191 | pages = 1643–1644 | date = December 9, 1984 |pmid=7992043| url = http://www.sciencemag.org/site/feature/data/cohen/266-5191-1642a.pdf | doi=10.1126/science.7992043|bibcode = 1994Sci...266.1642C }}</ref>
In 1962, Gilbert's physics PhD student [[Gerald Guralnik]] extended Gilbert's work on massless particles; Guralnik's work is widely recognized as an important thread in the discovery of the [[Higgs Boson]].<ref>{{ cite book | title = The Infinity Puzzle: The Personalities, Politics and Extraordinary Science Behind the Higgs Boson | author = Close, Frank  | pages = 146–147 | publisher = Oxford University Press | year = 2013}}</ref>

With his PhD student [[Benno Müller-Hill]], Gilbert was the first to purify the [[lac repressor]],<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 16591435 | title = Isolation of the lac repressor | last1=Gilbert | first1 = Walter | last2 = Müller-Hill | first2 = Benno | date = December 1966 | volume = 56 | issue = 6 | pages = 1891–1898|journal=PNAS | doi=10.1073/pnas.56.6.1891 | pmc=220206|bibcode = 1966PNAS...56.1891G | doi-access = free }}</ref> just beating out [[Mark Ptashne]] for purifying the first gene regulatory protein.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 16591470 | journal=PNAS|title = Isolation of the lambda phage repressor | last=Ptashne | first = Mark  | date = February 1967 | volume = 57 | issue = 2 | pages = 306–313 | doi=10.1073/pnas.57.2.306 | pmc=335506|bibcode = 1967PNAS...57..306P | doi-access=free}}</ref>

Together with [[Allan Maxam]], Gilbert developed a new [[DNA sequencing]] method,  [[Maxam–Gilbert sequencing]],<ref>{{cite book | last1=Maxam | first1=Allan | last2=Gilbert | first2=Walter | title=Nucleic Acids Part I | chapter=Sequencing end-labeled DNA with base-specific chemical cleavages | series=[[Methods in Enzymology]] | year=1980 |pmid=6246368|volume=65|issue=1|pages=499–560 | doi=10.1016/S0076-6879(80)65059-9| isbn=9780121819651 }}</ref><ref name="Maxam"/> using chemical methods developed by Andrei Mirzabekov. His approach to the first synthesis of [[insulin]] via [[recombinant DNA]]<ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Villa-Komaroff L, Efstratiadis A, Broome S, Lomedico P, Tizard R, Naber SP, Chick WL, Gilbert W |title=A bacterial clone synthesizing proinsulin | journal=PNAS | year=1978 | volume=75 |issue=8 | pages=3727–31 | doi=10.1073/pnas.75.8.3727 | pmid=358198|pmc=392859 |bibcode=1978PNAS...75.3727V |doi-access=free }}</ref> lost out to [[Genentech]]'s approach which used genes built up from the nucleotides rather than from natural sources. Gilbert's effort was hampered by a temporary moratorium on recombinant DNA work in [[Cambridge, Massachusetts]], forcing his group to move their work to an English biological weapons site.<ref>{{ cite book | title = Invisible Frontiers: The Race to Synthesize a Human Gene | last = Hall | first = Stephen S. | year = 1987 | publisher = Atlantic Monthly Press }}</ref>

Gilbert first proposed the terms [[introns]] (intragenic regions) and [[exons]] (expressed regions) in reference to recently discovered phenomenon of splicing<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Berget SM, Moore C, Sharp PA | title = Spliced segments at the 5' terminus of adenovirus 2 late mRNA | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America | volume = 74 | issue = 8 | pages = 3171–3175 | date = August 1977 | pmid = 269380 | pmc = 431482 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.74.8.3171 | bibcode = 1977PNAS...74.3171B | doi-access = free }}</ref> and suggested explanation for the evolution of introns in a seminal 1978 "News and Views" correspondence to ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' titled "why genes in pieces?".<ref>{{ cite journal | last=Gilbert | first = Walter | title = Why genes in pieces | date =February 9, 1978 | volume = 271 | issue=5645 | page=501 | journal = Nature|bibcode = 1978Natur.271..501G |doi = 10.1038/271501a0 | pmid=622185| s2cid = 4216649 | doi-access = free }}</ref>  In 1986, Gilbert proposed the [[RNA world hypothesis]] for the [[origin of life]],<ref>{{Cite journal | last1 = Gilbert | first1 = W. | title = Origin of life: The RNA world | doi = 10.1038/319618a0 | journal = Nature | volume = 319 | issue = 6055 | pages = 618 | year = 1986 | bibcode=1986Natur.319..618G| s2cid = 8026658 | doi-access = free }}</ref> based on a concept first proposed by [[Carl Woese]] in 1967.