Derek George Smyth

Derek George Smyth, FRSC (24 April 1927 – 28 October 2024) was a British biochemist who specialised in peptide structure and function. In 2002, he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.^[1]

Derek Smyth
Born	(1927-04-24)24 April 1927 Kingston Upon Thames, England
Died	28 October 2024(2024-10-28) (aged 97) Enfield, England
Nationality	British
Scientific career
Fields	Biochemistry
Institutions	Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital, Yale School of Medicine, Rockefeller University, National Institute for Medical Research Battersea Polytechnic, University of London

Life and career

Smyth started working at the National Institute for Medical Research in 1963.^{[citation needed]} He was Head of the Laboratory of Peptide Chemistry in Mill Hill, London from 1972 to 1992. He had worked previously with Professor Joseph Fruton, Head of the Biochemistry Department at Yale University, where he gained experience in protein and peptide chemistry and in 1960 transferred to Rockefeller University in New York City where, in the laboratory of Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein, he reinvestigated and established the amino acid sequence of pancreatic ribonuclease.^[2][3]

His major contribution came from studies of β-lipotropin, now recognised as a component of the pro-opiomelanocortin locus.^[4][5]

After retiring from NIMR, Smyth continued his research at the Institute for Molecular Biology in Salzburg, in the Pharmacology Department of the University of Murcia and in the William Harvey Research Institute, University of London. For a number of years (1977-1982) he was invited formally to assist the Nobel Committee in their nomination of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine^{[citation needed]} and in 1997 he was elected as an honorary member (Excmo) of the Royal Academy of Medicine and Surgery in Murcia.^{[citation needed]}

Smyth died on 28 October 2024, at the age of 97.^[6]

References

1. "Announcement". The Times. 14 February 2002. p. 40. ISSN 0140-0460. ProQuest document ID 318606918.
2. Loewy, Ariel G.; Siekevitz, Philip (1991). Cell Structure and Function: An Integrated Approach. Philadelphia: Saunders. p. 169. ISBN 9780030474392. OCLC 1148218832.
3. White, Abraham; Handler, Philip; Smith, Emil L (1973). Principles of Biochemistry. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 257. ISBN 9780070697584. OCLC 1151061019.
4. Davis, Joel (1984). Endorphins: New Waves in Brain Chemistry. Garden City, New York: Dial Press. pp. 44–45. ISBN 9780385278560. OCLC 1033595208.
5. Hawkes, Nigel (7 October 1978). "Opening the doors of the brain". South China Morning Post. p. 2. ISSN 1021-6731. ProQuest document ID. … Dr Derek Smyth and his team at the National Institute for Medical Research … isolated a … substance, which they called the C-Fragment of lipotropin. … The most significant of the endorphins seems likely to be the C-Fragment. A much more potent analgesic than any of the other endorphins … it is also much longer-lived in the brain. This led Dr Smyth to suggest that one function of the C-Fragment might be in the long-term control of pain …
6. "Mr Derek George Smyth". Dignity Funeral Directors. Retrieved 14 November 2024.