David Baltimore appointed as RIKEN Honorary Fellow
16 December 2011 (Volume 6 Issue 12)
Nobel laureate and President Emeritus of Caltech, David Baltimore (center), accompanied by his wife, the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Alice Huang (left), is appointed RIKEN Honorary Fellow by RIKEN President Ryoji Noyori (right).
David Baltimore, the President Emeritus and Millikan Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), was inaugurated as a RIKEN Honorary fellow on 6 October 2011 at a ceremony held at the RIKEN Yokohama Institute. The fellowship was established to promote RIKEN’s activities and internationalization, and is conferred upon persons without a RIKEN affiliation who have achieved eminence on a global scale. RIKEN has previously conferred the title upon Leo Esaki, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics, former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, and Yuan T. Lee, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Baltimore is a 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery, at the age of 37, of the enzyme responsible for reverse transcription, through which viruses insert their RNA into a cell’s DNA. This discovery was the key to understanding the reproduction of retroviruses, such as HIV. From 1997 to 2006, he worked to promote advances in scientific research as President of Caltech. In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Bill Clinton.
Over 200 participants attended the ceremony and listened to Baltimore’s special lecture, “Control of the Inflammatory Process,” and afterwards engaged in active discussions. Baltimore also toured the RIKEN Yokohama Institute and Wako campus, where he praised RIKEN’s cutting-edge research facilities and high-quality research. His wife, Alice Huang, who is President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, also visited Japan, and presented the lecture “Diversity and Diplomacy in Science: A Necessity for Future Success” at Sophia University in Tokyo.
