Harold Smith was born in Germany to an Austrian mother and American father who was stationed in Austria with the military at the end of World War II.

[3][4] After completing his postdoctoral position with Dr. Susan Berget at Baylor College of Medicine in Biochemistry in 1986, Smith became an assistant professor at the University of Rochester.

[8] OyaGen is a biopharmaceutical company which develops therapies to fight viral illness through editing enzymes, with a focus on Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV).

[10] In 2005, the company began preclinical trials on a drug that OyaGen believes will protect the body's natural A3G, which functions as an editing enzyme in mutating HIV DNA during its replication in such a way that the virus can no longer code for itself.

[12] That same year, Smith, through the University of Rochester Medical Center, received a $100 thousand grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to aid in research for curing infectious diseases, such as HIV.

[4] Throughout his academic career, Smith has provided his expertise in reviewing grant proposals for the NIH as well as European and Israeli funding agencies.