David Baltimore

With sadness, the MBL notes the passing of David Baltimore, a pathbreaking molecular biologist and Nobel laureate, on September 6, 2025, at his home in Woods Hole, Mass. Baltimore was a member of the MBL Society (formerly MBL Corporation) from 1996-2006; served on the MBL Physiology course faculty (1983) and was a valued advisor to MBL leadership over the years. The MBL flag will be lowered in his memory.

While on the faculty at MIT in 1970, Baltimore independently identified the enzyme reverse transcriptase, a discovery that upended the “central dogma” of molecular biology and became foundational to modern virology and cancer biology. In 1975, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Howard Temin and Renato Dulbecco.

Baltimore played major roles as a scientific leader. He was founding director of the Whitehead Institute at MIT beginning in 1982, served as president of Rockefeller University in 1990–'91, and led Caltech from 1997 to 2006. He later served as president and chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He leaves his wife, Alice S. Huang, a member of the MBL Society, their daughter, and a granddaughter.

An obituary published by the New York Times is here, and a memorial notice by MIT is here.