Michael Smith began his professional research career in salmon physiology and endocrinology, but returned to the chemical synthesis that had been his first interest, including the chemical synthesis of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Smith experimented with isolating genes and invented site-directed mutagenesis, a technique for deliberately altering gene sequences. Smith's work was hailed as having tremendous implications for genetic studies and the understanding of how individual genes function, and already has been applied in the study of disease-producing viruses. In 1993, Smith shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry independently with Kary Mullis. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences credited Smith and Mullis with having revolutionized basic research and saluted the possibilities offered by their research toward the cure of hereditary diseases.

Smith was born in Blackpool, England, to Rowland Smith, a market gardener, and Mary Agnes Armstead Smith, a bookkeeper who also helped with the market gardening. Smith was admitted...