Onward and Upward
A week after he appeared on TIME's list of 200, M.I.T. Microbiologist David Baltimore was back in the news. In an act of bold leadership, he called on fellow scientists to examine the potential "biohazards" of genetic research. He was one of the prominent signers of a published letter in which DNA researchers pledged to halt certain types of experiments that might create novel and dangerous microorganisms or cancer-causing viruses. The scientists asked others around the world to join them in "voluntarily deferring" the dangerous work on recombinant DNA.
The letter caused an uproar--scientists fear any limitation on their freedom of action--but it led to the establishment of guidelines for such experiments by the National Institutes of Health.
A year after the letter, Baltimore was thrust into even greater prominence: he won the 1975 Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The prize, shared with two others, was for the discovery that a cancer-causing virus had an enzyme able to reverse the normal pathway of information flow in all other biological systems. The discovery helped the study of whether viruses play a role in causing human cancer.
Baltimore, who is married to a microbiologist, spends most of his working hours engaged in basic research. He also serves on the national committee that oversees guidelines for recombinant DNA research and advises the director of the NIH. Although he has expressed his fear of conducting genetic experiments without ironclad safeguards, he does not want them curbed by badly drawn government regulations. When the Cambridge city council considered banning certain recombinant DNA experiments at M.I.T. and Harvard, he spoke in protest.
Says he: "My life is dedicated to increasing knowledge. We need no more justification for scientific research than that. My motivating force is not that I will find a 'cure' for cancer. There may never be a cure as such. I work because I want to understand."
This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.