Nobel Impact

Canadians can be proud of yet another Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The newest winner in Dr. Michael Smith of the University of British Columbia for his discovery in DNA based chemistry . Dr. Smith was born in Blackpool, England and came to Canada in 1956. He began working in the field of chemically synthesized DNA in the early 1960’s.

He was honoured with the 1993 Nobel Prize for developing a crucial technique used in genetic engineering called site-directed mutagenesis. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences stated, "His discovery without a doubt revolutionized basic research and entirely changed researchers’ ways of performing their experiments."

Dr. Smith’s work has allowed medical researchers to better understand cancer genes and viruses. Once researchers better understand these pathogenic genes then they can start to develop ways to counteract them. For example, once the protein in these genes can be altered to find out what is really the critical cause of the cancer.

Because of Dr. Smith’s discovery the future holds the possibility of gene therapy leading to cures for hereditary diseases by specifically correcting mutated code words in genetic material.