David Baltimore summary

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Below is the article summary. For the full article, see David Baltimore.

David Baltimore, (born March 7, 1938, New York, N.Y., U.S.), U.S. virologist. He received his doctorate from the Rockefeller Institute. He and Howard Temin (1934–94), working independently, discovered an enzyme that synthesizes DNA from RNA, the reverse of the usual process. This enzyme, reverse transcriptase, has become an invaluable tool in recombinant DNA technology. The research of Baltimore, Temin, and Renato Dulbecco helped illuminate the role of viruses in cancer; the three men shared a Nobel Prize in 1975. In 1990 Baltimore became president of Rockefeller University. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, when he was elected to a three-year term as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Nobel Prize Summary

Nobel Prize, any of the prizes (five in number until 1969, when a sixth was added) that are awarded annually from a fund bequeathed for that purpose by the Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Nobel. The Nobel Prizes are widely regarded as the most prestigious awards given for intellectual

physiology Summary

Physiology, study of the functioning of living organisms, animal or plant, and of the functioning of their constituent tissues or cells. The word physiology was first used by the Greeks around 600 bce to describe a philosophical inquiry into the nature of things. The use of the term with specific

medicine Summary

Medicine, the practice concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention, alleviation, or cure of disease. The World Health Organization at its 1978 international conference held in the Soviet Union produced the Alma-Ata Health Declaration, which was designed to serve governments as a

Following retrovirus infection, reverse transcriptase converts viral RNA into proviral DNA, which is then incorporated into the DNA of the host cell in the nucleus.

reverse transcriptase Summary

Reverse transcriptase, an enzyme encoded from the genetic material of retroviruses that catalyzes the transcription of retrovirus RNA (ribonucleic acid) into DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). This catalyzed transcription is the reverse process of normal cellular transcription of DNA into RNA, hence the