Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

Baltimore-30
BALTIMORE: Polio and its relatives; influenza; the viruses that cause cancer. Harry Rubin came
from Caltech to help us with the cancer virus work because that was a specialty at Caltech.
LIPPINCOTT: Oh. But did they even know what a cancer virus was back in those days
BALTIMORE: Oh, yes. Cancer-inducing viruses were first discovered by Peyton Rous in 1911.
LIPPINCOTT: Oh, that’s right—Rous sarcoma virus.
BALTIMORE: Rous sarcoma virus.
LIPPINCOTT: So that was Richard Franklin’s course
BALTIMORE: Richard Franklin and Ed Simon taught the course. And from the experience that I
had had with Phil Marcus and then working with Franklin and Simon and the other students in
that course, I said, “This field is ripe for attack, and Dick Franklin is the guy who really knows
what’s going on.” So I convinced Luria to recommend me to move to Rockefeller, where
Richard was an assistant professor. Now, Luria having gone out on a limb to get me to MIT, it’s
pretty remarkable that he personally recommended me to Detlev Bronk, who was the president at
Rockefeller and who accepted every student personally.
LIPPINCOTT: Luria must have been disappointed to lose you.
BALTIMORE: He said he was. I think he was. He helped me get back to MIT, later on. No, it
was all very cordial, and he understood exactly what I was saying. There was one animal
virologist coming to MIT that fall, and I met him at Cold Spring Harbor—Jim Darnell. And he
doesn’t really remember this; I’ve talked to him about it. I asked him, maybe not very precisely,
“Will there be a chance to work in your lab when you come to MIT” And he started telling me
about all the people he was committed to and that it wasn’t clear, but that “We’ll talk about it
when I get there,” or something. So I didn’t feel like I had a clear path at MIT to do animal
virology. I didn’t know Jim—I later worked with him but didn’t know him at that time. And I