Interview with David Baltimore - Caltech Oral Histories

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Baltimore-75 BALTIMORE: Yes, and Kip’s statement to them was, “Don’t hold back anything. I don’t want David to come here and say that we didn’t tell him whatever.” LIPPINCOTT: Whatever problems there were. BALTIMORE: Whatever problems, responsibilities, perceptions were around, he wanted them laid out. So they were, as far as I know, very honest. And when I came, it was true, there were no surprises that I could lay on the head of anybody else. [Laughter] You know, when you aggregate it all, of course there are surprises, but— LIPPINCOTT: Steve [Steven E.] Koonin was provost at that time BALTIMORE: Steve was provost, and I met with him. I even met with Tom [Everhart], I think, if I remember correctly. LIPPINCOTT: And you kept Koonin as your provost. BALTIMORE: I did. LIPPINCOTT: I guess he was pretty useful to you. BALTIMORE: Well, it was a terrific opportunity to have somebody with deep knowledge of Caltech working closely with me; because I knew nothing about Caltech other than what I’d been told. I had not ever spent time on the campus beyond giving a couple of lectures and coming out here for Norman Davidson’s eightieth birthday, so I’d been here three or four times. LIPPINCOTT: Yes, and people important to you, like Dulbecco and Temin were Caltech people. BALTIMORE: Right. I knew all of the background of Caltech and the mystique of Caltech. In fact, I can tell and do tell even to this day, about the role of Caltech in modern biology, which is not appreciated on the campus, even. How deep it was. Because Caltech was generally viewed—still is viewed, on the outside—as a physics school, as an engineering school, but not as
Baltimore-76 a biology school, in spite of the fact that from the time that [Thomas Hunt] Morgan came here in 1928, Caltech was the center of genetic biology almost in the world. LIPPINCOTT: Yes. [George Wells] Beadle and people like that. BALTIMORE: Beadle, and Delbrück. LIPPINCOTT: And Norman Horowitz. BALTIMORE: And Norman Horowitz, and others. It was an extraordinary place—first in nonmolecular genetics and then, with the structure of DNA, in molecular genetics. LIPPINCOTT: And Lee [Leroy E.] Hood and his machines. BALTIMORE: Yes. That moves you away from pure genetics to something more biochemical. His first machines were protein-sequencing machines, which were very important, both from a genetic point of view and from a physiologic point of view. LIPPINCOTT: So that must have excited you. You weren’t coming to a biological wasteland from MIT. BALTIMORE: Oh, no! I felt like I was coming to the place that really held the flame of biology. I was a little disappointed, in a way, that some of those characteristics—the very central role of Caltech in biology—were very much in the past. LIPPINCOTT: Do you think it fell down a bit BALTIMORE: Well, it certainly fell down a lot, but it’s not entirely Caltech’s fault. At the time when Caltech was the central place in biology, there was almost no one else doing it—doing molecular biology. LIPPINCOTT: Is this back in the days of Beadle you’re talking about
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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
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Baltimore-14 BALTIMORE: No, I don
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Baltimore-16 BALTIMORE: I did not w
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Baltimore-18 BALTIMORE: Yes, that
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Baltimore-20 LIPPINCOTT: How big a
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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: Baltimore-74 LIPPINCOTT: You don’
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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