Stuart Kelter interviews George P. Smith, distinguished professor emeritus of biochemistry at the University of Missouri/ Columbia, who in 2018 was the co-recipient with Frances Arnold and Gregory Winter of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In 1985, he developed an elegant method known as phage display, where a bacteriophage – a virus that infects bacteria with its genes – can be used to evolve new proteins. This method has led to a new pharmaceutical, Adalimumab (brand name “Humira”) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. Since retiring from the university, he has, among other topics, been teaching about global warming -- and the scale of societal changes needed to prevent the worst outcomes -- which is the subject of today’s interview.
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