[12][13][14][15] Sharp was educated at the University of Edinburgh where he was awarded a Bachelor of Science degree in 1979[9][16] followed by a PhD in 1982 for research using quantitative genetics on the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster supervised by Alan Robertson.
His work amplifying DNA from chimpanzee faecal samples showed that HIV type 1 was transmitted to humans from a specific chimp population in West Africa in the early 20th century.
Paul went on to examine his collection of ape faecal samples for plasmodium parasites, finding a likely candidate for the form that causes malaria in humans.
[17][20] In the eighties, Sharp collaborated with Desmond G. Higgins during the creation of CLUSTAL,[10][11] a suite of multiple sequence alignment programs that have become widely used and highly influential.
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