HomeDate: 2025-12-29
Honorary Academician Dr. David Baltimore passed away in the United States on September 6, 2025. He was 87 years old.
Dr. Baltimore was a world-renowned leader in biomedical sciences. Together with Dr. Howard Temin, he discovered reverse transcriptase, a breakthrough that earned them the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975. Reverse transcriptase catalyzes the transcription of RNA into DNA, overturning the prevailing principle of molecular biology—DNA to RNA to protein—and opening new directions in molecular biological research. Dr. Baltimore also identified NF-κB as a key regulatory factor in inflammatory processes, with profound implications for autoimmune diseases and cancer. In addition, his foundational discoveries concerning RAG genes, the mechanism of V(D)J recombination, and the abl oncogene played a pivotal role in advancing the fields of virology, immunology, and cancer biology.
After receiving his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University in 1964, Dr. Baltimore joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1968. From 1982 to 1990, he served as the founding Director of the Whitehead Institute, one of the world’s leading biomedical research institutions. He was President of The Rockefeller University from 1990 to 1991 and continued teaching there until 1994, before returning to MIT. In 1997, he assumed the presidency of the California Institute of Technology. Following his retirement in 2006, he was named President Emeritus of Caltech and held the Judge Shirley Hufstedler Professorship of Biology.
Dr. Baltimore was a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. He was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Sciences, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Association of Immunologists. His honors include the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the Gustav Stern Award in Virology, the NAS Award in Molecular Biology, the National Medal of Science, the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, and the Lasker–Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science.
Dr. David Baltimore was elected Academia Sinica Honorary Academician in 2008.
