MIT’s Phillip Sharp has spent the past 40 years straddling the worlds of academia and industry in Kendall Square, casting a long shadow in both directions.

As a scientist, his pioneering work led to the discovery of gene splicing, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1993. As an entrepreneur, he cofounded a pair of giants, Biogen and Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. The former is the most valued company in Massachusetts; the latter, a fast-growing drug maker working on Nobel-caliber science of its own.

As a self-described “old fart,’’ Sharp knows the history of Kendall as well as anyone, from its days as a dispossessed hub for manufacturing to its present as an epicenter of innovation in biotech. Kendall’s future, Sharp says, will hinge on how well the area’s biopharma mainstays are able to improve their collaborating efforts with newer tech neighbors like Google and Microsoft.

As Sharp sees it, the intersection of engineering and biology is a promising, wide-open field, and Kendall’s denizens have the potential to uncover new avenues of health care — provided they can work together.

“We know we have the best integration of hospitals, basic research, commercial activities, and computer science in the country,’’ he says. “If we’re not big players in that space, it’s our failure.’’

Damian Garde can be reached at damian.garde@statnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @damiangarde.