David Baltimore is considered one of the world’s most influential biologists. At age 37, he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Medicine for “discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell”. His current work focuses on control of inflammatory and immune responses, on the roles of microRNAs in the immune system, and on the use of gene therapy methods to treat HIV and cancer in a program called “Engineering Immunity”.

Born in New York City, he did his graduate research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Rockefeller University. His distinguished career includes service as a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was the founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, president of Rockefeller University, and president of the California Institute of Technology. He co-chaired the 1986 National Academy of Sciences committee on a National Strategy for AIDS and was appointed to head the NIH AIDS Vaccine Research Committee in 1996. During his tenure as president of the California Institute of Technology, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Clinton.