Clyde Hutchison. Worked on the wrong type of restriction enzyme (type I) which is devilishly hard because it's cutsite is stochastic (also makes it useless for

Clyde Hutchison. Worked on the wrong type of restriction enzyme (type I) which is devilishly hard because it's cutsite is stochastic (also makes it useless for bioengineering). Missed one Nobel prize there (went to his buddy Ham Smith, who worked on type ii which everybody knows and loves). Later proposed a theoretical mechanism for site directed mutagenesis (contingent on economical DNA synthesis). When that technology rolled around, he was on the paper - apparently he did the wet experiment himself - but it was Adams that got the prize. Missed two Nobel prizes. First one was bad luck, second one was all on the committee. Funny thing about biology, of you ask working biologists who discovered restriction enzymes or who invented site directed mutagenesis, or who discovered gfp, they will typically not be able to tell you.