Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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Baltimore-19 but they were very old-fashioned: embryology, descriptive biology, diatoms. None of it was molecular; none of it was biochemistry. LIPPINCOTT: How about genetics BALTIMORE: There wasn’t much formal genetics of any kind. It was not forward-looking, let’s put it that way. Whereas Haverford and Bryn Mawr were much more forward-looking— particularly Haverford. It had a cadre of young faculty who had been trained in the last five years basically for that and who were creating the future. Now, these were all men who were comfortable going to a liberal arts school, an undergraduate school, without a graduate program. So they worked their whole careers with undergraduates. They were wonderful teachers. Some of them have made a reputation for themselves in science, but most of them were just better known as teachers; I got something from them. And I used the libraries at both Bryn Mawr and Haverford which were much richer than the library at Swarthmore in the areas I cared about. So I discovered molecular biology—discovered what was going on there. LIPPINCOTT: And you taught it, actually, didn’t you—in your senior year BALTIMORE: In my senior year I taught it. LIPPINCOTT: That was unusual, was it not To have an undergraduate teach BALTIMORE: Well, I didn’t teach a formal course. It was a sort of evening course; it was the halt leading the blind. There was this little group of us who really saw that this was happening and wanted to be participants in this future. And I had gone to Cold Spring Harbor after my junior year, in the summer of 1959. LIPPINCOTT: Let’s talk about that. I read that you were in the first class of the Undergraduate Research Program at Cold Spring Harbor. BALTIMORE: URP. Right.
Baltimore-20 LIPPINCOTT: How big a program was that Were there quite a few students in it BALTIMORE: Oh, I don’t remember, but it was maybe a dozen students. LIPPINCOTT: You had to apply BALTIMORE: You had to apply—but this was a wonderful story: Here I am now, a junior in the honors program at Swarthmore, in biology. The honors program at Swarthmore was this fabulous program where you met once a week with the other students in the seminar for two years, and at the end of two years you had an exam on everything you’d done over those two years. And then it was decided whether you would graduate with honors, high honors, or highest honors—sort of like at Oxford. About half the students were in honors. The program is nowhere near as lovely as it was then because the world has changed. But this was remarkable. And then the people who examine you are outside examiners. Howard Temin is famous for his honors exam, among other things, because he walked in the room, sat down on the table in the room and said to the examiners, “You’re the most prestigious group of people we’ve had at Swarthmore. I have some questions for you.” [Laughter] Another famous thing about Howard is that he had read everything in the Swarthmore library and they had to buy books to keep him busy. LIPPINCOTT: Is that true BALTIMORE: I don’t know if it’s true or not. LIPPINCOTT: Sounds apocryphal. BALTIMORE: Yes, it sounds apocryphal, and there are certainly books in there he wouldn’t have read. Anyway, the honors program was a fabulous program; it allowed you really to develop independent education. So we were able to take these seminars into directions where the faculty had no idea what we were talking about, because we were going off and reading journals in Haverford and Bryn Mawr, and reading review articles. And we would come in with questions, and these guys would look at us and say, “You know, we have no idea. Go out and read something more and decide for yourself what’s right.”
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 and 22: Baltimore-16 BALTIMORE: I did not w
Page 23: Baltimore-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that
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
Page 73 and 74: Baltimore-68 BALTIMORE: I still had
Page 75 and 76:
Baltimore-70 LIPPINCOTT: Were they
Page 77 and 78:
Baltimore-72 BALTIMORE: This was—
Page 79 and 80:
Baltimore-74 LIPPINCOTT: You don’
Page 81 and 82:
Baltimore-76 a biology school, in s
Page 83 and 84:
Baltimore-78 LIPPINCOTT: OK. So on
Page 85 and 86:
Baltimore-80 Judy’s book calls it
Page 87 and 88:
Baltimore-82 never came to pass for
Page 89 and 90:
Baltimore-84 BALTIMORE: I don’t b
Page 91 and 92:
Baltimore-86 BALTIMORE: Well, he wa
Page 93 and 94:
Baltimore-88 BALTIMORE: We intervie
Page 95 and 96:
Baltimore-90 about this, but when I
Page 97 and 98:
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
Page 103 and 104:
Baltimore-98 LIPPINCOTT: You mean h
Page 105 and 106:
Baltimore-100 LIPPINCOTT: OK. In th
Page 107 and 108:
Baltimore-102 BALTIMORE: I had no i
Page 109 and 110:
Baltimore-104 BALTIMORE: So I was g
Page 111:
Baltimore-106 BALTIMORE: Well, not
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Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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