Oliver Smithies, a renowned geneticist, Nobel laureate and former UW-Madison professor, died Tuesday at the age of 91.
The British-born scientist was best known for developing a method of introducing genes into the genome of a mouse, which allowed future scientists to observe the effects of thousands of genes and better combat disease.
Smithies, along with two other scientists, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2007 for his work, much of which he performed during a 29-year stint at UW-Madison.
“Just before he left here he did the major piece of work [for which he won the Nobel Prize],” the late UW-Madison genetics professor James Crow said in 2007, according to a university release. “One of my proudest accomplishments was helping to attract him here.”
After graduating from Oxford with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, Smithies started his career at the University of Toronto, where he became known in the scientific community in 1955 for introducing starch as a medium for gel electrophoresis.
He left Toronto to become a professor of genetics at UW-Madison in 1960. After almost three decades in Madison, he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina’s medical school in 1988, where he remained a professor until his death.
Colleagues say Smithies was known for his tenacious work ethic and his passion for scientific discovery.
“Oliver was the quintessential scientist,” said Jerry Yin, a UW–Madison genetics professor. “He loved asking big questions, the process of trying to answer parts of the questions, positive results and the process of overcoming experimental barriers.”
Respected around the world in his field, Smithies leaves behind a legacy of scientific advancement and originality. Smithies’ work “transformed the whole world of mammalian genetics,” UW geneticist Allen Laughon commented in 2007.
According to Yin, Smithies’ discoveries have already benefitted countless scientists and will continue to do so.
“Starch gels paved the way for modern polyacrylamide gels, a technique that almost every single molecular biologist routinely utilizes,” Yin said. “Oliver’s work speaks for itself.”
Smithies used a portion of his Nobel Prize winnings to bring some of the world’s foremost biologists to the colleges at which he worked, including UW-Madison. He hoped to give students access to the most respected members of the scientific community.
His love for teaching was his most overlooked quality, Yin said.
“For him, teaching was an intimate part of the process of scientific discovery. It gave him reasons to scour the old and new literature, to make novel connections between disparate fields,” Yin said. “Most of all, it gave him great joy.”
Smithies died in Chapel Hill, N.C., where he lived with his wife, a fellow professor. His death was originally announced by the University of North Carolina.
