American biologist David Baltimore, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering the mechanisms of genetic information transfer, has died at the age of 87.
Modern.az reports that “The New York Times” wrote about this.
Baltimore died on September 6 at his home in Massachusetts. The scientist's wife, Alice Huang, stated that the cause of death was complications from several types of cancer.
According to the publication, Baltimore was only 37 years old when he made the discovery that earned him the Nobel Prize in 1975. Previously, it was believed that information in cells moved in only one direction – from DNA to RNA and protein synthesis. Baltimore experimentally demonstrated that information could also be transferred in the opposite direction – from RNA to DNA. The key point was the discovery of a viral enzyme called reverse transcriptase, which reverses this process.
This discovery led to an understanding of retroviruses and viruses, including HIV, which uses this enzyme.
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Baltimore was awarded a number of other prizes and honorary titles, including the U.S. National Medal of Science.
In an interview, Baltimore stated that his parents were children of immigrants from the Russian Empire.
