MICHAEL Smith, a Blackpool born scientist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry has died aged 68 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Awarded the Nobel Prize in 1993 for his work on DNA molecule mutations, he was a well-loved, generous, yet shy man, according to friends and colleagues.

His generosity was such that he paid for 12 colleagues to go to Stockholm with him for the award ceremony.

Described as being "like the rabbit in Alice in Wonderland -- shy, caring and busy" by his secretary, his interests ranged from science through to skiing.

Michael Smith was born into a working-class family in Blackpool on April 4, 1932. His mother and father both had to work from their early teens onward, she in the holiday boarding house her mother ran and he in his father's market garden. Michael did very well in his eleven plus exam and was offered a scholarship to Arnold School.

He was introduced to the world of Scouts, where he made friends and learned about camping and the outdoors. It was partly because of this love of nature that he eventually decided to settle in Vancouver.

But he was educated in England and got his PhD in Chemistry at Manchester University.

Then in 1956 he heard of a young scientist in Vancouver, Gobind Khorana, who had a position available to work on biologically important molecules.

For years Michael worked at the Fisheries Research Board of Canada Laboratory in Vancouver and published many papers about crabs, salmon, and marine molluscs, but he managed to sustain his research in DNA chemistry with outside grants.

In 1966 he was appointed a University of British Columbia professor of biochemistry in the faculty of medicine where he completed the research which gained him the Nobel Prize in 1993 and continued to work there until his tragic death on October 4. He leaves three children, Tom, Ian and Wendy.