In memoriam: David Baltimore (1938-2025)

David Baltimore, Nobel laureate, pioneering biologist, and friend of the IMP since its foundation, passed away at the age of 87.

The IMP received the sad news that David Baltimore, whose groundbreaking discoveries and institutional leadership shaped modern biology, passed away at the age of 87. Baltimore was a founding member and the first chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Board of the IMP, serving from 1987 to 1992. His visionary perspective and scientific leadership guided the institute during its formative years and left a lasting mark.

Baltimore was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 for the discovery of reverse transcriptase, a breakthrough that transformed virology, cancer research and biotechnology. Baltimore’s discovery also changed the “dogma” of molecular biology, that genetic information could only flow from DNA to RNA.

Baltimore was the founding director of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT (1982-1990), President of The Rockefeller University (1990–1991) and Caltech (1997-2005) and in 2008 served as President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Among many honours, he received the Canada Gairdner International Award (1974), the U.S. National Medal of Science in 1999 and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize in 2000.

Despite his many commitments, Baltimore remained a friend of the IMP. In 2017, he joined the opening conference of the new IMP building, honouring the occasion with a lecture and underlining his enduring connection to Vienna’s scientific community.

With David Baltimore, the world loses an oustanding scientist and pioneer of molecular biology, and the IMP a close companion whose ties to the institute spanned more than three decades.