BALTIMORE, DAVID

BALTIMORE, DAVID (1938– ), U.S. molecular virologist and Nobel laureate. Born in New York City, Baltimore received his B.A. with high honors in chemistry from Swarthmore College in 1960 and his Ph.D. from Rockefeller University, N.Y. He started his postgraduate work in 1963 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in biophysics, decided to work on animal viruses, moved to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, and later to the Rockefeller Institute. After finishing his postdoctoral fellowships in 1965, he became a research associate at Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California (1965–68), and associate professor of microbiology at MIT (1968–72). From 1972 to 1997 he was an institute professor of biology at MIT and from 1973 he was an American Cancer Society professor of microbiology. He was founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and served from the institute's creation in 1982 to 1990, when he became president of Rockefeller University. In 1997 Baltimore became president of the California Institute of Technology. His career has been distinguished by his dual contribution to biological research and to national science policy. Baltimore helped pioneer the molecular study of animal viruses, and his research in this field had profound implications for understanding cancer and, later, AIDS. As one of the nation's most distinguished biologists, he was awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize for his work in virology. Baltimore has been a major figure in Washington as head of the National Institutes of Health AIDS Vaccine Research Committee from 1996 to 2002, and also in 1986 as co-chair of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine's Committee on a National Strategy for AIDS. In 1999 he was awarded the National Medal of Science. He was a co-recipient of the 2000 Warren Alpert Foundation Prize and was awarded the 2002 AMA Scientific Achievement Award. (Bracher Rager (2nd ed.)