David Baltimore
David Baltimore · Science & Medicine
Reverse Transcriptase
1938, New York City, United States — 2025, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States
United States (MIT · Caltech · Rockefeller University)
David Baltimore is recognized among Jewish contributors to Science & Medicine — Reverse Transcriptase
Born to a Jewish family in New York, Baltimore became a leading molecular biologist at MIT and later president of Caltech. In 1970, studying tumour viruses, he independently discovered reverse transcriptase — the enzyme that copies RNA back into DNA — overturning the assumption that genetic information flows only from DNA to RNA. This finding, central to understanding retroviruses like HIV, brought him a share of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at age 37.
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Source: Nobel Prize Medicine 1975
Reverse Transcriptase
Source: Nobel Prize Medicine 1975
