Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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<strong>Baltimore</strong>-17 LIPPINCOTT: Well, I was in Harvard in ’59, just working for the former chairman of the Biology Department there. BALTIMORE: Who was that LIPPINCOTT: Frank Carpenter. Well, you wouldn’t know about him, because he was a morphologist, a paleoentomologist. And I only say that about Watson because he was considered the bad boy of the department and all the grandees disliked him—because he had contempt for them. BALTIMORE: Yes. He was disrespectful. LIPPINCOTT: Yes, and he thought that they were not engaged in interesting or important work. They were still looking at wing venation— BALTIMORE: Yes, but he was able, at Harvard, to bring in a cadre of molecular biologists and create molecular biology. So nothing was in his way. I mean, he had disdain for all those other people. And Ed [E. O.] Wilson, famously—but he had Wally [Walter] Gilbert, whom he attracted over from physics; he had Mark Ptashne, who came there as a faculty member; he had a number of others. So he created a school of molecular biology. What he couldn’t do was then move that into mammalian biology, and his frustration was that he wanted to do cancer research; he saw that the future was in cancer research, and he could not convince his colleagues or the administration—particularly the administration—to make a commitment to a cancer center, to a new kind of mammalian biology, which we did at MIT. Jim was always jealous of what we were doing at MIT; he said it, at the opening of the MIT cancer center [1973]. He said, “You’re doing the right thing. I was never able to do that at Harvard, and it’s Harvard’s loss, and you guys are in the forefront.” LIPPINCOTT: Is that why he went to Cold Spring Harbor
<strong>Baltimore</strong>-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that’s why he went to Cold Spring Harbor. Because at Cold Spring Harbor he had the freedom to create what he wanted to create—and would have created it at Harvard, if they’d let him. And Harvard would be a different place today, in that kind of biology. LIPPINCOTT: Anyway, so you decided you didn’t want to go Harvard. BALTIMORE: So I didn’t want to go to Harvard. And, you know, you make these decisions on a whim. One day in the dormitory overnight is not the way to make a decision. LIPPINCOTT: But that’s what people do. BALTIMORE: That’s what people do. And there was a very strong positive attraction to Swarthmore. Beautiful campus—and I had all these people I knew who were going there or had been there. LIPPINCOTT: It was co-ed BALTIMORE: It was co-ed from its inception in 18-whatever it was. LIPPINCOTT: Was it Quaker BALTIMORE: Quaker. The Quakers set up three schools, one for women, one for men, and one co-ed: Byrn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore. LIPPINCOTT: How about the science there, at that time BALTIMORE: I figured the science would take care of itself. There was perfectly good science at Swarthmore but not outstanding, because they didn’t have a research tradition. Although even in biology, they had a guy who ran biology—[Robert K.] Enders, who did a lot of research, especially in the summers. He went out to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory in Colorado and sort of ran that program, I think. A number of the faculty ran research programs,
Page 1 and 2: DAVID BALTIMORE (b. 1938) INTERVIEW
Page 3 and 4: CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Page 5 and 6: Baltimore-iii 51-55 1975 Nobel Priz
Page 7 and 8: Baltimore-2 BALTIMORE: The family w
Page 9 and 10: Baltimore-4 LIPPINCOTT: Oh! That wa
Page 11 and 12: Baltimore-6 BALTIMORE: Suburban, si
Page 13 and 14: Baltimore-8 I remember a big thing
Page 15 and 16: Baltimore-10 college at that point;
Page 17 and 18: Baltimore-12 BALTIMORE: Yes. That e
Page 19 and 20: Baltimore-14 BALTIMORE: No, I don
Page 21: Baltimore-16 BALTIMORE: I did not w
Page 25 and 26: Baltimore-20 LIPPINCOTT: How big a
Page 27 and 28: Baltimore-22 BALTIMORE: No, this wa
Page 29 and 30: Baltimore-24 BALTIMORE: That’s ri
Page 31 and 32: Baltimore-26 BALTIMORE: I spent all
Page 33 and 34: Baltimore-28 BALTIMORE: No, I think
Page 35 and 36: Baltimore-30 BALTIMORE: Polio and i
Page 37 and 38: Baltimore-32 LIPPINCOTT: So your Ph
Page 39 and 40: Baltimore-34 BALTIMORE: No, I’m n
Page 41 and 42: Baltimore-36 BALTIMORE: Oh, yes, I
Page 43 and 44: Baltimore-38 BALTIMORE: It was year
Page 45 and 46: Baltimore-40 LIPPINCOTT: No, it was
Page 47 and 48: Baltimore-42 DAVID BALTIMORE SESSIO
Page 49 and 50: Baltimore-44 BALTIMORE: The Cookery
Page 51 and 52: Baltimore-46 appears in Howard’s
Page 53 and 54: Baltimore-48 BALTIMORE: Yes, it’s
Page 55 and 56: Baltimore-50 The experiment I descr
Page 57 and 58: Baltimore-52 room and they didn’t
Page 59 and 60: Baltimore-54 LIPPINCOTT: OK. Renato
Page 61 and 62: Baltimore-56 all the pictures that
Page 63 and 64: Baltimore-58 and the profits from t
Page 65 and 66: Baltimore-60 contemporary. So that
Page 67 and 68: Baltimore-62 BALTIMORE: And that’
Page 69 and 70: Baltimore-64 BALTIMORE: No, it was
Page 71 and 72: Baltimore-66 understand that. Becau
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Baltimore-68 BALTIMORE: I still had
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Baltimore-70 LIPPINCOTT: Were they
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Baltimore-72 BALTIMORE: This was—
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Baltimore-74 LIPPINCOTT: You don’
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Baltimore-76 a biology school, in s
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Baltimore-78 LIPPINCOTT: OK. So on
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Baltimore-80 Judy’s book calls it
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Baltimore-82 never came to pass for
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Baltimore-84 BALTIMORE: I don’t b
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Baltimore-86 BALTIMORE: Well, he wa
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Baltimore-88 BALTIMORE: We intervie
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Baltimore-90 about this, but when I
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Baltimore-92 to announce it.” Gor
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Baltimore-94 BALTIMORE: I don’t r
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Baltimore-96 BALTIMORE: Yes. LIPPIN
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Baltimore-98 LIPPINCOTT: You mean h
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Baltimore-100 LIPPINCOTT: OK. In th
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Baltimore-102 BALTIMORE: I had no i
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Baltimore-104 BALTIMORE: So I was g
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Baltimore-106 BALTIMORE: Well, not
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Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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