Oliver Smithies is a British-born American geneticist and Nobel laureate, credited with the invention of gel electrophoresis in 1955, and the simultaneous discovery, with Mario Capecchi, of the technique of homologous recombination of transgenic DNA with genomic DNA, a much more reliable method of altering animal genomes than previously used, and the technique behind gene targeting and knockout mice. Since 1988, Smithies has been designated an Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Smithies' work has advanced research in cystic fibrosis and could possibly have applications in other human diseases.

Smithies was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. He has said that his love of science comes from an early fascination with radios and telescopes. Smithies read Physiology for a BA First class 1946 and then earned a second bachelor's degree in chemistry. He also received a MA 1951 and a DPhil in Biochemistry in 1951 at Balliol College, Oxford. On scholarship to Oxford, Smithies dropped out of medical school to study chemistry instead.

While researching gene therapy as a method for treating hereditary diseases, Smithies uncovered the work that Evans had been doing on the embryonic stem cells of mice. Using a sample obtained from Evans, he demonstrated that targeted removal or alteration of genes within the stem cells allowed for the controlled manipulation of the mouse genome. In 1991 Smithies created a “knockout mouse”—so named because one of its genes had been experimentally replaced or “knocked out”—that accurately modeled human cystic fibrosis.

Smithies is now a naturalized American citizen, and, despite being color-blind, is a licensed private airplane pilot who enjoys gliding. His wife, Nobuyo Maeda, is a pathology professor at University of North Carolina. After she failed to secure a job at Wisconsin and was hired instead by UNC, Smithies moved to Chapel Hill with her. He was previously married to Lois Kitze, a scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

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