Holley in lab coat using a pipette under a hood. Robert William Holley (1922-1993) was an American biochemist. During World War II, working for the United States Office of Research and Development as part of the war effort, he was part of the team at Cornell that first synthesized penicillin. For unraveling the genetic code of ribonucleic acid (RNA) by describing the structure of alanine transfer RNA and linking DNA and protein synthesis Holley was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1968 (with Har Gobind Khorana and Marshall Warren Nirenberg). After winning his Nobel honors, Holley went on to study the molecular factors that control growth and multiplication of cells, research which added greatly to the scientific understanding of cancer. Ironically, it was lung cancer that killed him.