Photo: Bengt Nyman — File:George Smith EM1B5849 (31295409687).jpg (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY 2.0
George P. Smith
born 1941 · United States · Born 1940 or later
Nobel Chemistry 2018
American biologist who invented phage display, a method to fish out useful peptides and antibodies from vast viral libraries.
Nobel-winning work
Smith invented phage display: foreign peptides are fused to coat proteins of bacteriophages so that each virus particle displays on its surface the peptide encoded by the DNA it carries. Screening huge phage libraries against a target quickly finds binding peptides and antibodies — a technique, shared in the prize with Frances Arnold and Gregory Winter, behind many antibody drugs.
Fields
Related topics
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