John Derek Smith
John Derek Smith FRS was a British molecular biologist who participated in many of the major discoveries at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge.
Career
- Scientific staff, Agricultural Research Council Virus Research Unit, Cambridge 1945-59;
- Research Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge 1949-52;
- Rockefeller Foundation Fellow, University of California, Berkeley 1955-57;
- Senior Research Fellow, California Institute of Technology 1959-62,
- Member of Scientific Staff, LMB, Cambridge 1962-88
"John Smith was a venerable nucleic acids biochemist. He had worked on the nucleic acids of viruses long before coming to the MRC-LMB and was an expert on identification and characterization of nucleotides, much of it done on unlabeled material, detected by observing chromatographs under UV light. He was a quiet person but very lively in conversations about science."
His doctoral students include Gerard R. Wyatt.
Personal life
In 1955 he married Ruth Aney.He had a long term relationship with Rosemary Myers, an artist, which continued until his death.