Hamilton O. Smith

Infobox Scientist
name = Hamilton O. Smith
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caption = Hamilton O. Smith
birth_date = August 23, 1931
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nationality = United States
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field = microbiology
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known_for = restriction enzymes
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prizes = Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978
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Hamilton Othanel Smith (born August 23, 1931) is an American microbiologist and Nobel laureate.

Smith was born on August 23, 1931, and graduated from University Laboratory High School of Urbana, Illinois. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but in 1950 transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his B.A. in Mathematics in 1952 [http://cal.berkeley.edu] . He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1956.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1978 for discovering type II restriction enzymes with Werner Arber and Daniel Nathans as co-recipients.

He later became a leading figure in the nascent field of genomics, when in 1995 he and a team at The Institute for Genomic Research sequenced the first bacterial genome, that of "Haemophilus influenzae". "H. influenza" was the same organism in which Smith had discovered restriction enzymes in the late 1960s. He subsequently played a key role in the sequencing of many of the early genomes at The Institute for Genomic Research, and in the sequencing of the human genome at Celera Genomics, which he joined when it was founded in 1998.

He currently directs a team at the J. Craig Venter Institute that works towards creating a synthetic bacterium, "Mycoplasma laboratorium". In 2003 the same group had synthetically assembled the genome of a virus, Phi X 174 bacteriophage.

References

*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Raju
first=T N
authorlink=
year=1999
month=Oct
title=The Nobel chronicles. 1978: Werner Arber (b 1929); Hamilton O Smith (b 1931); Daniel Nathans (b 1928)
journal=Lancet
volume=354
issue=9189
pages=1567
publisher = | location =
pmid = 10551539
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
doi = 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)76606-X
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Shampo
first=M A
authorlink=
coauthors=Kyle R A
year=1995
month=Jun
title=Hamilton Smith--Nobel Prize winner in medicine or physiology
journal=Mayo Clin. Proc.
volume=70
issue=6
pages=540
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 7776712
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Smith
first=H O
authorlink=
coauthors=Wilcox K W
year=1992
month=
title=A restriction enzyme from Hemophilus influenzae. I. Purification and general properties. 1970
journal=Biotechnology
volume=24
issue=
pages=38–50
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 1330118
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Berg
first=K
authorlink=
year=1978
month=Dec
title= [The Nobel prize in physiology and medicine 1978. Nobel prize to a controversial research field]
journal=Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen.
volume=98
issue=34-36
pages=1741–2
publisher = | location = | issn =
pmid = 725894
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
*cite journal
quotes = no
year=1978
month=Nov
title=Molecular genetics takes Nobel Prize
journal=JAMA
volume=240
issue=20
pages=2137–8
publisher = | location =
pmid = 359842
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =
doi=10.1001/jama.240.20.2137
author=,
*cite journal
quotes = no
year=1978
month=Oct
title=The Nobel prizewinners 1978: medicine. From modest beginnings.
journal=Nature
volume=275
issue=5682
pages=689–90
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pmid = 360075
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*cite journal
quotes = no
last=Lagerkvist
first=U
authorlink=
year=1978
month=Oct
title= [To split a gene]
journal=Lakartidningen
volume=75
issue=43
pages=3892–4
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pmid = 279742
bibcode = | oclc =| id = | url = | language = | format = | accessdate = | laysummary = | laysource = | laydate = | quote =

External links

* [http://nobelprize.org/medicine/laureates/1978/smith-autobio.html Autobiography]