George Smith (chemist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
George Smith
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Smith during Nobel press conference in Stockholm, December 2018
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George Pearson Smith
10 March 1941 Norwalk, Connecticut, U.S.
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| Known for | Phage display |
| Spouse(s) | Marjorie Sable |
| Awards | 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry |
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| Thesis | The variation and adaptive expression of antibodies. (1970) |
| Doctoral advisor | Edgar Haber |
George Pearson Smith (born March 10, 1941) is a well-known American biologist. He won a Nobel Prize for his important work in science. He is a retired professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, USA.
Contents
Early Life and Education
George Smith was born in Norwalk, Connecticut. He studied biology at Haverford College and earned his first degree. After that, he worked as a high school teacher and a lab helper for a year.
He then went to Harvard University and earned his PhD. This advanced degree was in bacteriology and immunology, which are studies about tiny living things and how our bodies fight off sickness.
Discovering Phage Display
After finishing his studies, George Smith worked at the University of Wisconsin. In 1975, he joined the faculty at the University of Missouri.
His most famous discovery is a method called phage display. This is a clever way to show specific proteins on the outside of a bacteriophage. A bacteriophage is a type of virus that infects bacteria.
How Phage Display Works
In phage display, scientists take a small piece of a protein they are interested in. They then insert this piece into the gene of a bacteriophage's outer coat. This makes the bacteriophage "display" that protein on its surface.
George Smith first described this technique in 1985. He showed how to put small protein pieces, called peptides, onto the surface of a type of bacteriophage called a filamentous phage. He did this by combining the peptide with a specific gene of the phage.
Nobel Prize Recognition
This amazing work with phage display changed how scientists could find new medicines and study diseases. Because of this important discovery, George Smith was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He shared this prestigious award with two other scientists, Greg Winter and Frances Arnold.
Supporting Human Rights
Beyond his scientific work, George Smith is also known for supporting equal rights. He believes in fairness for all people, including Palestinians and Israeli Jews, in their shared homeland. He is a strong supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which aims to promote human rights through peaceful actions.
Smith has mentioned that while he is not religious, his wife is Jewish, and their sons had a Bar Mitzvah. He feels a strong connection to Jewish culture and politics.
Awards and Honors
George Smith has received many awards for his contributions to science:
- 2000: Named a Curators' Professor by the University of Missouri.
- 2001: Became an Elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
- 2007: Received the Promega Biotechnology Research Award from the American Society for Microbiology.
- 2018: Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, shared with Greg Winter and Frances Arnold.
- 2020: Elected as a Member of the United States National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
- 2023: Received the first-ever Mizzou Medal of Distinction from the University of Missouri College of Arts and Sciences.
See also
In Spanish: George P. Smith para niños
