Altman, Sidney

Altman, Sidney

(1939–  ) biochemist; born in Montreal, Canada. He became affiliated with Yale in 1971 and holds dual citizenship. He showed that the RNA molecule could rearrange itself, thereby altering the material it produces without requiring an enzyme. This was a major breakthrough in our understanding of genetic processes. He and Thomas Cech shared the Nobel Prize for chemistry (1989).

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.