Sanger sequenced the amino acids of insulin, the first of any protein. His work “revealed that a protein has a definite constant, genetically determined sequence—and yet a sequence with no general rule for its assembly. Therefore it had to have a code” (Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, p. 188). With Andrew Peter Ryle, L. F. Smith and R. Kitai.

In 1958 Sanger received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry "for his work on the structure of proteins, especially that of insulin." 

In 1980 Sanger shared half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Gilbert "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acides." The other half was awarded  to Paul Berg "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA."

Sanger and colleagues developed methods for rapid sequencing of long sections of DNA molecules. Sanger’s method, and that developed by Gilbert and Maxam, made it possible to read the nucleotide sequence for entire genes that ran from 1000 to 30,000 bases long. With S. Nicklen and A. R. Coulson. This paper is available from the PNAS at this link.

In 1980 Sanger shared half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Walter Gilbert "for their contributions concerning the determination of base sequences in nucleic acids." The other half was awarded to Paul Berg "for his fundamental studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with particular regard to recombinant-DNA."

Sanger and colleagues sequenced the first whole DNA genome—that of bacteriophage phi-X174 (5375 bases) 

Sanger and colleagues developed the random shotgun method to prepare templates for DNA sequencing. With A. R. Coulson, B. G. Barrell, A. J. H. Smith & B. A. Roe.

Sanger and colleagues sequenced the entire genome of bacteriophage lambda using a random shotgun technique. This was the first whole genome shotgun (WGS) sequence.