Remembering Oliver Smithies

Oliver Smithies was a winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, along with Mario Capecchi and Sir Martin Evans, for his work in gene targeting. He discovered that a disease-causing gene could be modified, and this opened up an entire new field of molecular biology and medicine. Heart disease, diabetes, and cystic fibrosis were among the conditions that could not be explored and treated with the results of gene targeting. Of note, Dr. Smithies, who did much of his groundbreaking work at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (their first Nobel Prize winner) came from a small area of Central England that has produced four Nobel Prize winners.