Dr Roberts was educated at the University of Sheffield and undertook postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Whilst working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Dr Roberts established that the genes of the adenovirus, one of the viruses that cause the common cold, are discontinuous. Previously biologists had believed that genes consisted of unbroken stretches of DNA, all of which encoded protein structure. His work was instrumental in having important implications for the study of genetic diseases and this structure is believed to drive evolution by allowing information from different parts of the gene to be brought together in new combinations. For his discovery of ‘split genes’ Dr Roberts was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1993 and has worked at the New England Biolabs, USA since 1992.