Austin Gerard Smith (born 1960) is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research at the University of Cambridge.[1] He is notable for his pioneering work on the biology of embryonic stem cells.[2][3]
Austin Smith obtained his doctoral degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1986.[4] He then carried out postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, before joining the Centre for Genome Research at the University of Edinburgh as a group leader.[5] In 1996, he was appointed director of the Centre, which became the Institute for Stem Cell Research under his leadership.[6] He remained as director of the Institute until his move to Cambridge in 2006.[7]
In 2003, Smith was awarded an MRC Research Professorship[8] and elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.[9] And in 2006, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.[10] In 2010, he was co-recipient of the Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine along with French cardiologist Michel Haissaguerre.[11]
In February 2010, together with 13 other leading stem cell researchers, he wrote an open letter to journal editors to voice the opinion that obstructive reviews by a small number of researchers in the field were hindering publication of novel stem cell research.[12][13]
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