Nobel Prize Cash & Philanthropy

Oliver Smithies is a British-born American biochemist and geneticist who shared the Nobel Prize in 2007 in the field of Physiology or Medicine with Mario R. Capecchi and Sir Martin J. Evans. They shared the prize “for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells”. Professor Smithies was affiliated with the University of North Carolina at the time of the award.

Oliver Smithies was awarded approximately $310,000 for his share in the Nobel Prize. Smithies decided to donate his prize money to his alma mater Balliol College in Oxford, England. He also donated to three places where he spent time researching, including the University of Toronto, The University of Wisconsin, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It is reported that he donated equal amounts to the aforementioned Universities.