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Retired Mizzou biology professor wins the Nobel Prize in chemistry

George Smith, emeritus professor of biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing phage display, a technology that's been used to develop drugs that could treat autoimmune diseases and cancer.
University of Missouri-Columbia
George Smith, emeritus professor of biology at the University of Missouri-Columbia, has won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing phage display, a technology that's been used to develop drugs that could treat autoimmune diseases and cancer.

When retired biologist George Smith picked up the phone at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, he wasn’t expecting it to be the Swedish Academy.

“It’s kind of a common prank for your friends to put on a fake Swedish accent and tell you that you won,” Smith said. “I thought maybe it was a joke but the line was so scratchy and there was so much interference, I thought nah, it wasn’t one of my friends. They wouldn’t have such a bad connection.”

Through the phone call, Smith, a professor emeritus at the University of Missouri-Columbia, learned that he won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a method called phage display in the 1980s. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria. Smith used them to create a tool that would help identify antibodies, molecules in the body that identify invading pathogens, that would be the most useful for binding to molecules that are associated with certain diseases.

Smith, 77, is the first professor in the University of Missouri’s history to win the Nobel Prize. He worked for the university for 40 years and retired in 2015.

St. Louis Public Radio's Eli Chen spoke to George Smith, emeritus professor of biology at University of Missouri, about what it means for him to win the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“I’m ecstatic. That reflects on the whole [University of Missouri] system,” said Tom George, chancellor and professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. “It’s great for the whole state of Missouri as well, puts us even more on the map. George Smith is a remarkable man.”

The Nobel Prize in chemistry also went to two other researchers, Frances Arnold, a chemical engineering professor at the California Institute of Technology and Gregory Winter, a biochemist at the M.R.C. Laboratory of Molecular Biology in England.

George Smith learned early Thursday morning that he wad won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Credit Majorie R. Sable
George Smith learned early Thursday morning that he wad won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Winter advanced Smith’s phage display research by using it to develop antibody drugs that could treat a number of diseases. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first of these drugs in 2002. That was adalimumab, sold under the brand name Humira, which is used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel diseases.

When Smith worked on the technology 30 years ago, he had a small sense that he was developing something significant in his field.

“Very soon after we developed [phage display], it soon became clear there were many applications,” he said.

Regarding the prize itself, Smith said that winning it would have made a bigger difference in his life if he had received it while he was still a professor.

“It would’ve been nice if I got the prize like 10 years ago so a whole bunch of grant proposals that didn’t get funded probably would’ve gotten funded,” Smith said. “I would’ve had a more blossoming end to my career. I think my life will pretty much go on, as it has in the last three years.”

Follow Eli on Twitter: @StoriesByEli

Copyright 2021 St. Louis Public Radio. To see more, visit St. Louis Public Radio.

Eli Chen is the science and environment reporter at St. Louis Public Radio. She comes to St. Louis after covering the eroding Delaware coast, bat-friendly wind turbine technology, mouse love songs and various science stories for Delaware Public Media/WDDE-FM. Before that, she corralled robots and citizen scientists for the World Science Festival in New York City and spent a brief stint booking guests for Science Friday’s live events in 2013. Eli grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, where a mixture of teen angst, a love for Ray Bradbury novels and the growing awareness about climate change propelled her to become the science storyteller she is today. When not working, Eli enjoys a solid bike ride, collects classic disco, watches standup comedy and is often found cuddling other people’s dogs. She has a bachelor’s in environmental sustainability and creative writing at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and has a master’s degree in journalism, with a focus on science reporting, from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism.