Michael Smith (chemist)

Michael Smith, CC, OBC ( born April 26, 1932 in Blackpool, England; † 4 October 2000 in Vancouver, Canada) was a Canadian chemist. He received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry together with Kary B. Mullis.

Life

Michael Smith studied chemistry and received his doctorate in 1956 at the University of Manchester. There was a research stay in Vancouver at Har Gobind Khorana, Nobel laureate in medicine of the year 1968. Smith was commissioned in 1960 with Khoranas working group to Wisconsin, but returned in 1961 back to Vancouver, where he was in 1966 Professor of Biochemistry at the University of British Columbia.

He received the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his fundamental contributions to the establishment of oligonucleotide - based, site-directed mutagenesis of deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) and its development for protein studies. In 1986 he was awarded a Gairdner Foundation International Award.