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Oliver Smithies (born June 23, 1925) is a British-born American geneticist and Nobel laureate,[1] credited with the introduction of starch as a medium for gel electrophoresis in 1955,[2] and the simultaneous discovery, with Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans, of the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA, a much more reliable method of altering animal genomes than previously used, and the technique behind gene targeting and knockout mice.
Smithies was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. He has said that his love of science comes from an early fascination with radios and telescopes.[3]
Smithies read Physiology for a BA First class 1946 and then earned a second bachelor's degree in chemistry.[4] He also received a MA 1951 and a DPhil in Biochemistry in 1951 at Balliol College, Oxford. On scholarship to Oxford, Smithies dropped out of medical school to study chemistry instead.[3]
Because of a visa problem, from 1953 to 1960 Smithies was an associate research faculty member in the Connaught Medical Research Laboratory at the University of Toronto in Canada,[3] before he could return to his originally planned post as Assistant, Associate and Leon J. Cole and Hilldale Professor of Genetics and Medical Genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he worked from 1960 to 1988.[3] It was at Toronto's Connaught Laboratory that Smithies developed the technique of gel electrophoresis.
Since 1988, Smithies has been designated an Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the United States.[5]
Smithies' work has advanced research in cystic fibrosis and could possibly have applications in other human diseases.[6] Along with gel electrophoresis, he developed gene targeting, a method of generating mice with more human-like characteristics for use in research.
He and Mario Capecchi both came to the same discoveries regarding gene targeting independently.[5] Smithies developed the technique while at the University of Wisconsin.
In 2002, Smithies worked along with his wife, Dr. Nobuyo Maeda, studying high blood pressure using genetically altered mice.[5] As of 2008, he still worked in his lab seven days a week.[7]
On October 8, 2007, Smithies was announced as co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah and Martin Evans of Cardiff University "for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells." Smithies is the first full professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill to receive a Nobel Prize.[6] Previous awards and honors received by Oliver Smithies include:
Smithies is now a naturalized American citizen,[17] and, despite being color-blind, is a licensed private airplane pilot who enjoys gliding.[3][4] His wife, Nobuyo Maeda, is a pathology professor at University of North Carolina.[4] He was previously married to Lois Kitze, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin.[4]
Medicine, Nobel Prize, United States, Dna, Chromosome
Toronto, Ontario, Association of American Universities, Canada, World War II
University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, Colleges of the University of Oxford, Jesus College, Oxford
University of Iowa, University of Michigan, University of Texas at Austin, University of Chicago, Michigan State University
University of Virginia, Duke University, University of Texas at Austin, North Carolina Tar Heels, University of Pittsburgh
United States, United Kingdom, Israel, Canada, Japan
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United States, American Institute of Chemists, Oliver Smithies, Elizabeth Blackburn, John D. Roberts
Neuropsychology, University of Chicago, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Hartford, Connecticut, Memory