UNC professor receives Nobel today

STOCKHOLM -- They call it "magic week" -- a dizzying schedule of speeches, news conferences, concerts, parties and appearances that celebrates the world's most dazzling thinkers.

For Dr. Oliver Smithies, a professor of pathology at UNC-Chapel Hill, it all culminates today in an event featuring His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who will award him the Nobel Prize in Medicine.

"It's a marvelous honor," Smithies said.

He's heard the whispers of Nobel glory for a decade.

This year, it's a reality for Smithies, a professor of pathology at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Smithies will share the prize with fellow scientists Sir Martin J. Evans and Mario R. Cappecchi "for their discoveries of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic cells."

"There has been rumor of it for 10 years," said Smithies after finally winning the prize for a discovery that's nearly 20 years old. "It was wolf, wolf, wolf."

Finally, in Stockholm, where the Nordic pitch-black December is brightened each year by one of the world's most prestigious award ceremonies, Smithies was swept up in a rarefied schedule of events that only a handful of people in the Triangle have ever witnessed.

The Nobel Prize -- which was established in the will of Alfred Nobel, an industrial magnate who invented dynamite -- has been awarded to fewer than 800 people and organizations since 1901. It's given in six categories for work that is considered a great benefit to mankind.

Smithies arrived in Stockholm on Wednesday with his wife, Dr. Nobuyo Maeda, who is also a pathologist at UNC-CH, and was immediately booked into action.

Laureates are chauffeured in personal limousines and are assigned volunteer attaches to manage the schedule. It's a full-time job to make sure the laureates are on time, have copies of their speeches, show up at ambassador brunches and philharmonic concerts, news conferences and, of course, the televised award ceremonies. Autograph hunters are kept at bay. Photography is strictly forbidden at many events -- even photography by family members.

"It's very organized and a well-planned event, and very enjoyable," Smithies said.

It's also a bit daunting. At age 82, Smithies acknowledged that the week-long schedule is demanding, even for a man who continues to work long hours and weekends at his lab in Chapel Hill.

Laureates stay at the Grand Hotel, a five-star accommodation that has hosted the honorees for 106 years. Its meeting rooms are appointed with soft leather and exquisite hardwood furniture. Through the windows, about a football field away and on the other side of a small bay, towers the 608-room Swedish Royal Palace, home to the king and queen.

Down to earth

Even amid the splendor, Smithies remained down to earth, winning over the international press corps and an audience of students with answers and anecdotes about his life and science. When someone asked him what he thought might be the greatest threat facing mankind, Smithies drew a thunder of laughter with his reply: "The Y-chromosome!"

"I think we have to teach our young boys not to solve their conflicts by fighting," Smithies added, sounding as though he might collect the Peace Prize, too.

He gave a lecture on Friday at the Karolinska Institute, the medical university that helps select the prize winners in medicine, noting it was the event he had most looked forward to during the week. The lecture, which he titled "Turning Pages," was a summary of his lifelong research, with pictures from his cherished notebooks, some dating to Jan. 1, 1954.