In his early career (between 1963 and 1967) Dalgarno conducted research, first at the
Medical Research Council's
National Institute for Medical Research supported by a University of Melbourne Traveling Scholarship to London (with Edward M. Martin, collaborating with E. Horton, S. L. Liu, T. S. Work, and R. A. Cox); second, with
François Gros at the
Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique on an MRC-CNRS Exchange Scholarship; and third, a postdoctoral fellowship assisted by a U.S. Public Health Research Grant at
California Institute of Technology, with
Robert L. Sinsheimer. His graduate student John Shine said Dalgarno was "a fantastic, enthusiastic lecturer, who was turned on by this molecular biology." Dalgarno and Shine found the
Shine–Dalgarno sequence, described by ANU as "the beginnings of biotechnology": One of Dalgarno's colleague wrote, == Selected publications ==