A Most Prolific Inventor
April / May 2010
Volume 8 Number 2
Unwavering focus. Constant drive. Fierce dedication. These are just a few characteristics shared by people who commit their lives to something the way Dick Smith has committed his to science. The chief scientist and director of proteomics at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory set foot onto the Richland, Wash., campus in 1976 with his sights on the advancement of mass spectrometry and its use for biological research. He finds himself on that same campus today, some 30 years later, in the midst of one of the most distinguished careers an innovator could ask for. “Dick is one of the most prolific inventors in PNNL’s history,” said his manager of twelve years, Dave Koppenaal. “His internal drive and focus have served him very well.”
And indeed they have. Add insightful, creative and adventurous and one is treated to a further glimpse into what makes Dick Smith special, a standout among his colleagues and far beyond. His work to develop and apply separation and mass spectrometry technologies to advance the field of proteomics and the broader arena of systems biology has amassed a collection of pioneering achievements for both the man and his science that is nothing short of impressive. And it wasn’t always because his experiments made sense to his peers or fell in line with the popular thinking of the moment. He went out on a limb, often exploring ideas that left others asking “Why?”—but just as often proving to be two or three steps ahead of the game.
As a child he was obsessed with science—and science fiction. Smith recalls, “I have always loved literature that challenges our concepts and conventional thinking. As a child reading science fiction I would always try to imagine the details of how some fantastical concept or device could actually work.” Today, he is viewed as a world leader in both developing and applying mass spectrometry for proteomics and related areas of biological research. For example, his innovations have garnered nine R&D 100 Awards, the second most of any individual scientist since the program began 47 years ago.
Smith, 60, also holds 37 U.S. patents and remains a proponent of making laboratory innovations available for broader public benefit by way of commercialization. Patented technologies on which Smith has been an inventor have resulted in more than a dozen licenses to commercial companies and produced in excess of $2.5 million in income. Most of these licenses have been with major mass spectrometer manufacturers who have also provided instruments at reduced or no cost to PNNL in return for rights to intellectual property.
Talk of Smith’s intellectual property leads naturally to yet another remarkable fact—he has authored or co-authored over 750 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters over the course of his career thus far. In this regard he got a very early start, being the lead author on over two dozen publications during his three-and-a-half-year graduate career, a pace he has maintained ever since. In fact, The Scientist has ranked him as one of the nation’s most highly cited scientists, further testament that he has unequivocally earned a place at the top of his field.
Smith has also committed himself to educating others in his field as a mentor to over 100 post-doctoral researchers, more than the rest of PNNL combined, and as an affiliate professor at three major universities. “Nothing to me is more exciting and stimulating than a passionate discussion—or debate!—with a group of smart and engaged scientists,” says Smith. “Very often the result is a totally new idea or concept that otherwise never would have made it to the level of being seriously considered. One of the greatest mistakes a young scientist can make, in my view, is to pass up such opportunities.” He also encourages thinking about the next steps. “If an idea pans out, what new opportunities does this create? Think it through, as many steps down the road as possible. As in chess, you may sometimes succeed as the result of a lucky move or guess, but success most often comes by thinking as many steps ahead as possible.”
Throughout his career, Smith’s research has primarily focused on the development and application of advanced analytical methods and instrumentation, with emphasis on methods for the ultra-sensitive characterization of biopolymers.
But his path hasn’t necessarily followed a straight line, as research and discovery sometimes bring unexpected twists. Ever-focused, Smith continues making his own path in light of what he learns along the way, unafraid to explore new directions; some of these changes in direction have been dramatic. For example, frustrated with the early limitations of liquid chromatography separations, he began to explore the use of supercritical fluids—dense gases at high pressures—in the early 1980s. His work led to the first supercritical fluid chromatography-mass spectrometry instrumentation, an approach still used today. In 1987 though, having learned that this research would not enable his larger scientific goals, he embarked on a different path, which proved much more fruitful. He had developed an approach for coupling two new technologies—capillary electrophoresis and electrospray ionization—and applying mass spectrometry to study biomolecule mixtures of enormously greater complexity and with much higher sensitivity than previously possible. This pioneering discovery enabled ultra-sensitive mass spectrometry measurements for the first time for a wide range of biological and environmental applications, and remains an active research area today with many thousands of publications appearing in the open literature since Smith’s first in 1987. And his 1988 R&D 100 Award for this discovery was further recognized in 1999 as one of the top 40 R&D 100 Award inventions of all time.
This research also led to Smith’s role in designing and leading the development of several new mass spectrometers in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory—or EMSL—a Department of Energy scientific user facility opened at PNNL in 1997. This fueled Smith’s growing desire to see the technology he spent so much time developing applied in ways that impact the environment and quality of life, through proteomics, the study of proteins and, for example, how they function in healthy tissues and how dysfunction results in disease. Smith has been widely recognized for his many accomplishments in pioneering the development of proteomics tools that can identify and measure the vast array of proteins and other molecules with high sensitivity, accuracy and resolution.
Smith has been highly honored by Battelle, which manages PNNL for DOE. In 1988 he became the youngest scientist to be promoted to the highest scientific level.
Smith enjoys some of life’s simple pleasures. When he’s not refining his home AV system, he’s hiking and spending time with his family, including his wife, Elaine, and son, Jeffrey—when home from college—two cats and the family’s bird, a 32-year-old Orange-Winged Amazon parrot named Amy.
Ali Madison is a PNNL communications specialist.
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