TEMIN, HOWARD MARTIN

TEMIN, HOWARD MARTIN (1934–1994), U.S. Nobel laureate in medicine. Temin was born in Philadelphia and graduated in biology from Swarthmore College. He received his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology, studying Rous sarcoma virus. His mentors included Renato Dulbecco and Harry Rubin. This work shaped his lifelong interest in animal viruses and their role in cancer induction. In 1960 he moved to the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he worked for the rest of his life. He formulated the hypothesis that RNA viruses direct virus synthesis in infected cells through a DNA provirus. This contradicted the contemporary central tenet that RNA synthesis is invariably DNA-directed, and it was ignored for six years. His discovery in 1970 of RNA-directed DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase), confirmed simultaneously and independently by david baltimore , indicated the mechanism by which viral RNA directs new viral synthesis. This led to general acceptance of his ideas and has profoundly influenced subsequent animal virology, including HIV research. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in medicine for this work in 1975 (jointly with David Baltimore and Renato Dulbecco). For the rest of his career he studied viral replication and its role in cancer induction, and in particular retroviral sequences which are cellular ("endogenous") components but may be implicated in cancer. Temin's many honors included membership of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Medal of Science, and the Gairdner and Lasker awards. A nonsmoker, Temin campaigned against smoking in public places. He died of lung cancer in Madison. (Michael Denman (2nd ed.)