Smith, Michael, 1932–2000, British-born Canadian biochemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Manchester, 1956. Smith was a researcher at the Univ. of British Columbia from 1961 until his death in 2000. He shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Kary Mullis for their contributions to the development of methods in DNA-based chemistry. Smith was specifically cited for developing a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis, which enables the genetic code to be reprogrammed and specific amino acids to be replaced in proteins. His work paved the way for the construction of proteins having new properties, with such potential applications as antibodies tailored to attack cancer cells and crop strains modified for more rapid growth.
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