Austin Smith

Professor Austin Smith, Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research, University Of Cambridge, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in 1986.  Following postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford, he joined the Institute for Stem Cell Research at the University of Edinburgh (formerly Centre for Genome Research) in 1990 as a group leader.  In 1996, he was appointed Director of the Centre.  He was appointed MRC Research Professor in 2003.  He took up the post of Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research at the University of Cambridge in the autumn of 2006.

Professor Smith’s expertise is in the field of stem cell biology and he has pioneered key advances in the field of Embryonic Stem (ES) Cell research.  His research focuses on the molecular and cellular controls of embryonic and somatic stem cells, and on interconversion between pluripotent and tissue-restricted states.