Born Jan. 28, 1922, in Urbana, 111. American biochemist.
Holley graduated from the University of Illinois in 1942. He has worked in various research centers of Cornell University, including V. du Vigneaud’s laboratory (1943–47), the New York State Agricultural Experimental Station (1948–57), the US Plant, Soil, and Nutrition Laboratory (1957–64), and the department of biochemistry and molecular biology (1965–66). Since 1966 he has worked at the Salk Institute. Holley’s primary work has dealt with decoding the structure of transfer RNA. In 1965 he determined the structure of the transfer RNA of alanine. He shared a Nobel Prize in 1968 with M. Nirenberg and H. G. Khorana.