David is an American biologist and is currently a Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology, where he was the president from 1997 to 2006. He is also the director of the Joint Center for Translational Medicine, which brings together Caltech and UCLA to translate basic science discoveries into clinical realities.
Baltimore won the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He was only 38 when he received the Nobel Prize alongside Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco. He is also the founder and director of the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research from 1982 to 1990 and was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007. Baltimore has made key contributions in the field of virology, immunology, cancer research, biotechnology, and recombinant DNA research. Let’s know more about his education and his past life.
Baltimore’s education and life before research
Baltimore was born in 1938 in New York. He graduated from Swarthmore College and Rockefeller University in 1960. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science in 2004 from Rockefeller University. He was introduced to molecular biology by George Streisinger, under whom he worked for a summer at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
There he also met two new MIT faculties – Salvador Luria and Cyrus Levinthal, who went on to win the Nobel Prize for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell. They invited Baltimore to apply to MIT.
Groundbreaking work in virology
After he was done with his Ph.D., Baltimore returned to MIT for postdoctoral research. There he partnered with James Darnell in 1963 and continued his work on virus replication with the help of poliovirus and pursued training in enzymology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1964/1965. One of the biggest contributions Baltimore made was in virology. He discovered the protein reverse transcriptase, required for the reproduction of the retroviruses such as HIV.
After he received the Nobel Prize, he reorganized his lab and shifted focus back to immunology and virology. His main area of interest was immunoglobulin gene expression. He managed to overcome hurdles such as the pathogenesis of the Abelson murine leukemia virus (AMuLV). Baltimore is also a member of numerous scientific advisory boards that include the Broad Institute, Ragon Institute, Regulus Therapeutics, and Immune Design.
Awards and honors Baltimore received for his work
President Bill Clinton gave Baltimore the National Medal of Science for his exceptional contributions to science. He has profoundly influenced the national science policy, covering everything from stem cell research to cloning to HIV.
He is also the past president and chair of the American Association of the Advancement of Science (2007–2009). Baltimore was recently named a Fellow of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
Baltimore has published more than 680 peer-reviewed articles. His current focus is on researching the control of inflammatory responses, on the roles of microRNAs in the immune system. He is also researching the use of gene therapy to treat HIV and cancer.
