Presented by Michael W. Bonney ’80, P’09, Trustee

President Hansen, I am honored to present Phillip A. Sharp.

At the frontiers of science we need intrepid adventurers who are willing to chart unknown territory to deepen our knowledge of the world. Today we honor a scientist whose bold approaches to questions of cellular processes and functions have revolutionized the fields of molecular biology and biochemistry.

Philip A. Sharp has dedicated himself to asking questions in new ways, taking the intellectual risks required to make some of the most significant biological discoveries of our time. Professor Sharp has been at the forefront of research in gene structure, expression and regulation. His discovery of RNA splicing and discontinuous gene structure changed forever how scientists consider genetic function and evolution, and earned him the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1993. His subsequent research in RNA interference has shed dramatic new light on the manufacture of normal and abnormal proteins and their roles in human disease.

This fundamental knowledge has created a new paradigm for the treatment of diseases from cancer to neurological conditions to rheumatoid arthritis. Philip Sharp, as both scientist and entrepreneur, has applied his discoveries to new drug therapies, taking knowledge from the research lab to the clinical setting in service to patients around the world.

For his brilliant approaches to the study of molecular biology and biochemistry and his challenge to his students to sustain communities of inquiry at the leading edge of discovery, I present Phillip A. Sharp for the degree Doctor of Science.

President’s conferral:

Phillip Sharp, you have the courage to ask scientific questions in new ways that have helped alleviate human suffering and opened new doors of investigation for future generations of scientists. Therefore by the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees, I hereby confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Science, with all the rights, privileges, and responsibilities which here and everywhere pertain to this degree.