Two Boston-area researchers, Richard J. Roberts and Phillip A. Sharp, were awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine yesterday for their work in finding "split genes."

Sharp, chair of MIT's biology department and a researcher at the institute's Center for Cancer Research, and Roberts, research director at New England Biolabs in Beverly, Mass., each worked independently towards the same conclusion.

Their discovery, made in 1977, overturned the accepted theory that genes are continuous over several segments. Instead, the researchers found, genes can be separated by gaps.

In an interview yesterday, Sharp said that understanding split genes is vital to exploring cancer and hereditary diseases. "It is clear that only by understanding differences in genes can you understand disease states and hope to control them," he said.

"Obviously, we're delighted," said Dr. Richard O. Hynes, director for the Center for Cancer Research at MIT, upon hearing of Sharp's award. "This was a fundamental breakthrough that is essential in doing anything involving gene expression or creating recombinant DNA drugs."