Altman, Sidney (1939– )

Canadian-born US biochemist who shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1989 with Thomas Cech for his research on the catalytic activities of RNA (the nucleic acid involved in translating DNA into proteins).

Altman studied ribonuclease-P, an enzyme that catalyses the depolymerization (decoupling of molecules) of RNA in the formation of transfer RNA (tRNA). Ribonuclease-P is comprised of RNA and a protein. Altman showed that the RNA component is all that is required to catalyse the formation of tRNA with the protein playing no part in this process.

Born in Montréal, Altman received an education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Colorado, Boulder. After obtaining a PhD, he took a job as a teaching assistant at Columbia University in 1960. Later, in 1971, he moved to Yale and embarked on his research career, becoming professor of biology in 1980.