John Derek Smith
John Derek Smith FRS (1924–2003) was a British molecular biologist who participated in many of the major discoveries at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge. In 1955 he married Ruth Aney (marriage dissolved 1968); died Cambridge 22 November 2003. He had a long term relationship with Rosemary Myers, an artist, which continued until his death. He was one of the very few scientists who understood the importance of nucleic acids before 1953. According to Nobel Laureate Sidney Altman "John Smith was a venerable nucleic acids biochemist. He had worked on the nucleic acids of viruses  long before coming to the MRC-LMB and was an expert on identification and characterization of nucleotides, much of it done on unlabeled material, detected by observing chromatographs under UV light. He was a quiet person but very lively in conversations about science." His doctoral students include Gerard R. Wyatt.