Named for Oliver Smithies, PhD
Dr. Smithies is an Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 along with Mario Capecchi of the University of Utah and Martin Evans of Cardiff University. He was born in England in 1925 and earned a bachelors degrees in physiology and chemistry at Balliol College in Oxford and earned a doctorate there in 1951.
During his career, he was credited with the invention of gel electrophoresis and the simultaneous discovery with Mario Capecchi, of the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA which was a more reliable method of altering animal genomes that was available prior to the time, and the technique behind targeting and knockout mice. Dr. Smithies dates his love of science back to an early fascination with radios and telescopes. He is still actively working and pursuing his hobby of flying airplanes.
Dr. Smithies embodies the work ethic , spirit of innovation and the pursuit of knowledge that we hope to nurture in our students.
