黑料吃瓜资源 (CSHL) mourns the passing of Nobel laureate and revolutionary molecular biologist David Baltimore.
In 1959, Baltimore became the first member of CSHL鈥檚 newly launched Undergraduate Research Program (URP). That summer, he worked with then-Assistant CSHL Director Arthur Chovnick on a project studying the 鈥淧hysiological genetics of Drosophila and Neurospora.鈥� But it was meeting members of CSHL鈥檚 renowned Phage Group, including MIT鈥檚 Salvador Luria and Cyrus Levinthal, that would change the trajectory of his life and career.
鈥淚 went to MIT, and it was really because I had met Luria that summer,鈥� Baltimore told Dr. Ralf Pettersson in a 2001 Nobel Prize interview. 鈥淚 had the feeling that the heyday of phage research was over … that I should be looking somewhere else, and I didn鈥檛 know where, so I took what was the easiest sort of analogy. If phage had been so important for working out the molecular biology of bacteria, animal viruses should be able to do the same thing for animal cells.鈥�
When Baltimore brought this analogy to Luria, the Nobel laureate arranged for him to attend CSHL鈥檚 course on Animal Viruses, taught by Rockefeller University鈥檚 Richard Franklin. In 1960, Baltimore would join Franklin at Rockefeller to continue his research, focusing on RNA viruses.
Ten years later, Baltimore鈥檚 work would culminate in . This enzyme allows information to pass from RNA to DNA. The discovery upended biology鈥檚 central dogma鈥攖hat the flow of information was a one-way street from DNA to RNA to proteins鈥攁nd won Baltimore a share of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. His discovery contributed to the identification of the first oncogenes and became the basis for the study of retroviruses like HIV.
Baltimore presented his work at on Transcription of Genetic Material and became a frequent visitor to the Laboratory over the following decades. He told the story of his discovery at the CSHL Center for Humanities鈥� retrospective meeting and was a featured guest at the Center鈥檚 2024 meeting on . In May 2025, Baltimore made his final appearance at the Laboratory as a keynote speaker for .
鈥淒avid鈥檚 passion for scientific research was stimulated by his experience as a student in the URP program at Cold Spring Harbor in the summer of 1959, a program that continues to the present day,鈥� says Jan Witkowski, a School of Biological Sciences professor and former director of CSHL鈥檚 Banbury Center. 鈥淭hroughout his long career, David participated in CSHL Symposia, meetings, and Center for Humanities events, where he continued to inspire others in their own scientific pursuits.鈥�
Written by: Nick Wurm, Communications Specialist | [email protected] | 516-367-5940