Oliver Smithies

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Oliver Smithies invented Gel electrophoresis in 1950. He later discovered, simultaneously with Mario Capecchi, the technique of homologous combination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA, a much more reliable method of altering animal genomes than previously used, and the technique behind Knock-out mice.

1 Life in England
2 Professional Posts
3 Awards
4 External links

[edit] Life in England

Smithies was born on 23 July 1925 at Halifax, West Yorkshire. He read Physiology (BA First class 1946, MA 1951) and Biochemistry (DPhil 1951) at Balliol College, Oxford.

[edit] Professional Posts

1953-1960: Connaught Medical Research Laboratory, University of Toronto, Canada
1960-1988: Assistant, Associate and Leon J. Cole and Hilldale Professor of Genetics and Medical Genetics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
1988 to Present: Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

[edit] Awards

1971 - Elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences.
1978 - Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1986 - Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
1990 - Gairdner Foundation International Award for contributions to medical science.
1993 - North Carolina Award for science.
1998 - American Association of Medical Colleges' Award for Distinguished Research was awarded to Smithies and Capecchi.
1998 - Elected Foreign Member of the Royal Society.
2001 - Smithies was awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the second most prestigious award in medicine, with Martin Evans and Mario Capecchi for his work on homologous recombination.
2002 - O. Max Gardner Award, the highest award at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his current institution.
2003 - Elected to the U.S. Institute of Medicine, one of the highest honors given to U.S. health professionals.
2003 - Smithies received the Wolf Prize in Medicine, the third most prestigious award in medicine, with Mario Capecchi and Ralph L. Brinster.
2005 - The USA charity March of Dimes awarded their annual prize in Developmental Biology for research in gene targeting jointly to Smithies and Mario Capecchi.