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| US microbiologist
who shared the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with his colleague
Daniel Nathans for their work on restriction enzymes, special enzymes that
can cleave genes into fragments. Smith was born in New York and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and at Johns Hopkins University. In 1964 he returned to Johns Hopkins, becoming professor 1973. Werner Arber (1929- ), a Swiss microbiologist, discovered restriction enzymes in the 1960s. Smith, working independently of Arber, verified Arber's findings and was also able to identify the gene fragments. Smith collaborated with Nathans on some of this work. As a result of the work of Nathans, Smith, and Arber (who also shared the Nobel prize), it is now possible to determine the chemical formulas of the genes in animal viruses, to map these genes, and to study the organization and expression of genes in higher animals. |