Oliver Smithies

Oliver Smithies
Born	(1925-06-23)June 23, 1925 Halifax, West Riding of Yorkshire, England
Died	January 10, 2017(2017-01-10) (aged 91) Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
Nationality	British, American
Alma mater	Balliol College, University of Oxford
Known for	Gel electrophoresis, gene targeting
Awards	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

Oliver Smithies (23 June 1925 – 10 January 2017) was a British-American geneticist and Nobel laureate,^[1]

He invented gel electrophoresis in 1955,^[2] which is now one of the basic techniques of biochemistry and molecular biology.

Much later, he worked on the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA. This is the most reliable method of altering animal genomes at present, and the technique behind gene targeting and knockout mice.

Martin Evans and Mario Capecchi were also working on this idea, and they were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2007.

1. ↑ "The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007". The Nobel Foundation. Retrieved 2007-10-08.
2. ↑ Smithies, Oliver (December 1955). "Zone electrophoresis in starch gels: group variations in the serum proteins of normal human adults". The Biochemical Journal. 61 (4): 629–641. doi:10.1042/bj0610629. ISSN 0264-6021. PMC 1215845. PMID 13276348.