Robert L. Sinsheimer

Robert Louis Sinsheimer (February 5, 1920 – April 22, 2017) was an American biophysicist, molecular biologist, and academic administrator. He is known for research on the bacteriophage φX174, including work that established its DNA as single-stranded and helped define its replicative form, and for later scientific leadership in debates over recombinant DNA and the early development of the idea of the Human Genome Project. He served as chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1977 to 1987.

Early life and education Sinsheimer was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Chicago. In 1936, at age 16, he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, initially intending to study chemical engineering but instead joining a newly established five-year program in quantitative biology and biological engineering that led to combined S.B. and S.M. degrees, which he received in 1941.

He and Alice Burton later showed that the replicative form of φX174 DNA behaved as a closed circular molecule. The φX174 system became an important model for studies of viral replication, gene organization, and DNA synthesis. He later collaborated with Arthur Kornberg and colleagues on the enzymatic synthesis of infective φX174 DNA in vitro, a result widely publicized in 1967 as a major step in experimental molecular biology.

Later work on φX174 in Sinsheimer's laboratory included genetic mapping and restriction-fragment analysis.

Scientific leadership and public policy Sinsheimer was one of the founding editors of the Journal of Molecular Biology and later served as editor-in-chief of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences beginning in 1972.

During the late 1960s and 1970s, he became active in public discussion of the scientific and social implications of molecular genetics and recombinant DNA.

University of California, Santa Cruz In 1977 Sinsheimer left Caltech to become the second chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz, serving until 1987. In 2001 he received the University of California Presidential Medal for his contributions to scholarship and higher education.