Temple F. Smith is a university professor in biomedical engineering

Biomedical engineering

Biomedical Engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology. This field seeks to close the gap between engineering and medicine: It combines the design and problem solving skills of engineering with medical and biological sciences to improve...

 who helped to develop the Smith-Waterman algorithm developed with Michael Waterman

Michael Waterman

Professor Michael S. Waterman is a scientist at the University of Southern California , where he holds an Endowed Associates Chair in Biological Sciences, Mathematics and Computer Science. He previously held positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho State University...

 in 1981. The Smith-Waterman algorithm serves as the basis for multi sequence comparisons, identifying the segment with the maximum local sequence similarity, see sequence alignment

Sequence alignment

In bioinformatics, a sequence alignment is a way of arranging the sequences of DNA, RNA, or protein to identify regions of similarity that may be a consequence of functional, structural, or evolutionary relationships between the sequences. Aligned sequences of nucleotide or amino acid residues are...

. This algorithm is used for identifying similar DNA

DNA

Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

, RNA

RNA

Ribonucleic acid , or RNA, is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life....

 and protein

Protein

Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...

 segments. He currently works as director of the BioMolecular Engineering Research Center at Boston University

Boston University

Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...

.

Education

He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1963 from the Physics Department, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., and thereafter he graduated with a PhD. in 1969 in the Physics Department, University of Colorado at Boulder. Consecutively, he did his Postdoctoral research (March 1969 - August 1971) in the Department of Biophysics and Genetics, University of Colorado Medical School, Boulder.

Interests

His research is centered on the application of various computer science and mathematical methods to the discovery of the syntactic and semantic patterns in nucleic acid and amino acid sequences.

Notable Appointments/Positions Held

• 1971 - 1984: Professor, Department of Physics, Northern Michigan University, Marquette, MI
• 1985 - 1991: Director, Molecular Biology Computer Research Resource, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health
• 1999 - : Co-organizer, 1999 Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth Discovering Biotechnology Day
• 2000 - : Co-Founder and Chief Information Officer, Modular Genetics, Inc.