Remembering David Baltimore, influential biologist and founding director of the Whitehead Institute | MIT News

The Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research fondly remembers its founding director, David Baltimore, a former MIT Institute Professor and Nobel laureate who died Sept. 6 at age 87.

With discovery after discovery, Baltimore brought to light key features of biology with direct implications for human health. His work at MIT earned him a share of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (along with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco) for discovering reverse transcriptase and identifying retroviruses, which use RNA to synthesize viral DNA.

Following the award, Baltimore reoriented his laboratory’s focus to pursue a mix of immunology and virology. Among the lab’s most significant subsequent discoveries were the identification of a pair of proteins that play an essential role in enabling the immune system to create antibodies for so many different molecules, and investigations into how certain viruses can cause cell transformation and cancer. Work from Baltimore’s lab also helped lead to the development of the important cancer drug Gleevec — the first small molecule to target an oncoprotein inside of cells.

In 1982, Baltimore partnered with philanthropist Edwin C. “Jack” Whitehead to conceive and launch the Whitehead Institute and then served as its founding director until 1990. Within a decade of its founding, the Baltimore-led Whitehead Institute was named the world’s top research institution in molecular biology and genetics.

“More than 40 years later, Whitehead Institute is thriving, still guided by the strategic vision that David Baltimore and Jack Whitehead articulated,” says Phillip Sharp, MIT Institute Professor Emeritus, former Whitehead board member, and fellow Nobel laureate. “Of all David’s myriad and significant contributions to science, his role in building the first independent biomedical research institute associated with MIT and guiding it to extraordinary success may well prove to have had the broadest and longest-term impact.” 

Ruth Lehmann, director and president of the Whitehead Institute, and professor of biology at MIT, says: “I, like many others, owe my career to David Baltimore. He recruited me to Whitehead Institute and MIT in 1988 as a faculty member, taking a risk on an unproven, freshly-minted PhD graduate from Germany. As director, David was incredibly skilled at bringing together talented scientists at different stages of their careers and facilitating their collaboration so that the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts. This approach remains a core strength of Whitehead Institute.”

As part of the Whitehead Institute’s mission to cultivate the next generation of scientific leaders, Baltimore founded the Whitehead Fellows program, which provides extraordinarily talented recent PhD and MD graduates with the opportunity to launch their own labs, rather than to go into traditional postdoctoral positions. The program has been a huge success, with former fellows going on to excel as leaders in research, education, and industry.

David Page, MIT professor of biology, Whitehead Institute member, and former director who was the Institute’s first fellow, recalls, “David was both an amazing scientist and a peerless leader of aspiring scientists. The launching of the Whitehead Fellows program reflected his recipe for institutional success: gather up the resources to allow young scientists to realize their dreams, recruit with an eye toward potential for outsized impact, and quietly mentor and support without taking credit for others’ successes — all while treating junior colleagues as equals. It is a beautiful strategy that David designed and executed magnificently.”

Sally Kornbluth, president of MIT and a member of the Whitehead Institute Board of Directors, says that “David was a scientific hero for so many. He was one of those remarkable individuals who could make stellar scientific breakthroughs and lead major institutions with extreme thoughtfulness and grace. He will be missed by the whole scientific community.”

“David was a wise giant. He was brilliant. He was an extraordinarily effective, ethical leader and institution builder who influenced and inspired generations of scientists and premier institutions,” says Susan Whitehead, member of the board of directors and daughter of Jack Whitehead.

Gerald R. Fink, the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor Emeritus at MIT who was recruited by Baltimore from Cornell University as one of four founding members of the Whitehead Institute, and who succeeded him as director in 1990, observes: “David became my hero and friend. He upheld the highest scientific ideals and instilled trust and admiration in all around him.”

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