Sherman Morton Weissman is an American scientist and the Sterling Professor of Genetics at the Yale School of Medicine. A mentor to Francis Collins, Weissman elucidated the nucleic acid sequence of the SV40 genome.

In 1978, Weissman published the complete nucleic acid sequence of the SV40 genome. A week later, Belgian researcher Walter Fiers published the genome sequence in another journal. Until 1+1⁄2 years earlier, the Weissman and Fiers teams had each been working on separate halves of the sequence. As technology allowed for faster sequencing, each team began to work toward sequencing the entire genome on its own. In the months before he came up with the published sequence, Weissman had to retract several "final" sequences once errors were discovered. Weissman was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1983