Oliver Smithies

Oliver Smithies
Smithies with the American Institute of Chemists Gold Medal (2009)
Born	(1925-06-23)23 June 1925 Halifax, West Yorkshire, England
Died	10 January 2017(2017-01-10) (aged 91) Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US
Nationality	British, American
Alma mater	University of Oxford (BA, DPhil)
Known for	Gel electrophoresis Gene targeting
Spouse	Nobuyo Maeda[3]
Awards	ForMemRS (1998)[1] Lasker Award (2001) Wolf Prize in Medicine (2002) Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal (2007) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (2007)
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry Genetics
Institutions	University of Toronto University of Wisconsin–Madison University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Thesis	Physico-chemical properties of solutions of proteins (1951)
Doctoral advisor	Alexander G. Ogston[2]

Oliver Smithies (23 June 1925 – 10 January 2017) was a British-American geneticist and physical biochemist. He is known for introducing starch as a medium for gel electrophoresis in 1955,^[4] and for the discovery, simultaneously with Mario Capecchi and Martin Evans, of the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA, a much more reliable method of altering animal genomes than previously used, and the technique behind gene targeting and knockout mice.^[5][6][7] He received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for his genetics work.^[8][9]