Austin Smith was born in 1960 on Merseyside (Great Britain). As a biochemist holding a doctorate in development genetics, he worked in the Department of Zoology at Oxford University prior to being named director of the Institute for Stem Cell Research at Edinburgh University in 1996. He is currently a Medical Research Council professor at the Department of Biochemistry and director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Stem Cell Research at Cambridge University. The coordinator of major European projects, he is also a member of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London, as well as of the EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization). In the year 2000 he won the Pfizer Academic Award for his pioneering work in the field of stem cells.

The ground state of pluripotency

Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent, which means they are capable of developing differently so as to become the specialised cells of the heart, the skin, nerves or any other organ or tissue.
Austin Smith focused his work on describing, understanding and verifying this surprising faculty of embryonic stem cells, and has contributed to highlighting the molecular network that is the fundament of pluripotency. This led him to propose the hypothesis that a pluripotency Įground stateČ exists, where a na•ve cell can proliferate and survive largely independently from its neighbours, but on the other hand is highly sensitive to any perturbation caused by external stimuli. He deduced that the disruption of this ground state, caused by a cascade of reactions involving specific enzymes (kinases), was at the origin of stem cells following differing paths of development.
These studies represent a vital stage in the development of cell treatment. Such regenerative medicine, as it is also called, could in the future enable stem cells to be used to regenerate damaged tissues or organs, and for treating various illnesses.

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