David Baltimore

David Baltimore (March 7, 1938 – September 6, 2025) was an American biologist. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for discovering reverse transcriptase. He shared the prize with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco. He was born in New York City.

The discovery of reverse transcriptase was made at the same time as Howard Temin. It overturned the central dogma of molecular biology because it showed that genetic information could traffic both ways between DNA and RNA. They published these findings in back-to-back papers in the journal, Nature. 

He was elected a foreign member of the Academia Europaea in 1999.

Baltimore died on September 6, 2025 from problems caused by metastatic cancer at his home in Woods Hole, Massachusetts at the age of 87.

References

Category:1938 births
Category:2025 deaths
Category:Cancer deaths in Massachusetts
Category:Scientists from New York City
Category:American Nobel Prize winners
Category:American virologists
Category:Members of Academia Europaea
Category:Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine winners