Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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Baltimore-65 BALTIMORE: A difficulty is that the virus is so mutable. But the virus has also found a variety of ways to make itself invisible to the immune system; and so the immune system, wonderful as it is, simply cannot mount an effective response to HIV, and that’s why it kills. Since the immune system can’t mount an effective response, making a vaccine involves doing something which doesn’t have a natural counterpart. And that’s new. All vaccines that we know of take advantage of the natural properties of the immune system. We’re going to have to do something unnatural. I’ve recognized that for fifteen years, but [pause] people are beginning to realize it now, I must say, and there are people thinking differently about the problem for the first time. LIPPINCOTT: You don’t work on it specifically, here at Caltech BALTIMORE: Yes, I do. Actually I have a big program. One of the things that we said loud and clear in this report was that it is the responsibility of every member of the scientific community who has anything to offer to this program to make it part of their research effort. So I took that to heart and opened an HIV research unit in my laboratory, and I’ve had it ever since. LIPPINCOTT: Around this time, you got embroiled in the [Thereza] Imanishi-Kari problem. Which I don’t think we need to go into, because Dan Kevles quite exhausted that subject. 7 [Laughter] And it turned out well—for you and for Imanishi-Kari. BALTIMORE: She remains a tenured professor at Tufts University, doing immunology. LIPPINCOTT: That’s good. I read Kevles’s book, obviously. It was fascinating to me—the lack of understanding on the part of some of those politicians about what a research paper is. It’s not the final word on anything—it’s like an invitation for people to come in and fool around and take things in a different direction. BALTIMORE: The way I describe it is that it’s part of an internal conversation in the scientific community, and it has to be seen that way. And it was very hard to get that through. But when you say that it was hard to get politicians to understand that—they willfully did not want to 7 Daniel J. Kevles, The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998).
Baltimore-66 understand that. Because if they had understood that, then they couldn’t make hay out of it, and they had decided that this was going to be their poster child. Specifically, John Dingell [D.- Mich.]. LIPPINCOTT: Do you think Dingell is a villain BALTIMORE: Absolutely. I have no doubt. In spite of the fact that he has positive characteristics. LIPPINCOTT: Yes, he’s done some good, but I guess he’s garden-variety— BALTIMORE: He was, at that time, pure evil. He was interested only in his personal aggrandizement—how much power could he get over the budget of the federal government; and he would use anything to increase that power. LIPPINCOTT: Well, it was kind of a sexy topic for him, wasn’t it So that caused you difficulties at Rockefeller. BALTIMORE: It did. LIPPINCOTT: And your presidency ended in 1991. OK, then you went back to MIT BALTIMORE: Well, no, I stayed on at Rockefeller for a couple of years, but not as president. I had a research laboratory—I’d always had a research laboratory. I expanded it some and stayed there because my wife then had a nice position in New York. We enjoyed being in New York very much. LIPPINCOTT: Where was she BALTIMORE: She was at NYU; she was dean for science. So I didn’t particularly want to leave New York. But I then got an offer to come back to MIT, in 1994.
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DAVID BALTIMORE (b. 1938) INTERVIEW
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CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
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Baltimore-iii 51-55 1975 Nobel Priz
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Baltimore-2 BALTIMORE: The family w
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Baltimore-4 LIPPINCOTT: Oh! That wa
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Baltimore-6 BALTIMORE: Suburban, si
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Baltimore-8 I remember a big thing
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Baltimore-10 college at that point;
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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 and 24: Baltimore-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that
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: Baltimore-64 BALTIMORE: No, it was
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
Page 99 and 100: Baltimore-94 BALTIMORE: I don’t r
Page 101 and 102: 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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