The Ragon Institute is deeply saddened by the passing of David Baltimore, PhD, a Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine who served as a co-chair of our Scientific Advisory Board for many years and helped to set the scientific direction of our institutional research. 

“The passing of David Baltimore, Nobel Laureate, is a seismic loss for science, the scientific community, and for all who knew him,” said Ragon Institute founding director, Bruce Walker, MD. “His brilliant mind, transformative scientific discoveries, inspiring leadership, and generous mentorship are unsurpassed. He will be sorely missed.”

Baltimore won the Nobel Prize in 1975 at the age of 37 alongside colleagues Renato Dulbecco and Howard M. Temin “for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell,”specifically the discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. This discovery proved that genetic information could flow in both directions (from DNA to RNA and vice versa), reshaping the field of biology

Over a decades-long career as a leading molecular biologist, Baltimore served on the faculty at MIT and the California Institute of Technology, where he was president from 1997-2006. He founded the Whitehead Institute in 1982 and served as its director until 1990. He also was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2008.

As a longtime member of the Ragon community, Baltimore additionally mentored Institute faculty members Shiv Pillai, MD, PhD, and Alex Balazs, PhD. His contributions to the field of immunology are invaluable, and we are grateful for his years of scientific leadership at the Ragon Institute.