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Renato Dulbecco
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| Scientist: Renato Dulbecco |
Italian–American physician and molecular biologist (1914–
Born in Cantanzaro, Italy, Dulbecco obtained his MD from the University of Turin in 1936 and taught there until 1947 when he moved to America. He taught briefly at Indiana before moving to California in 1949, where he served as professor of biology (1952–63) at the California Institute of Technology. Dulbecco then joined the staff of the Salk Institute where, apart from the period 1971–74 at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, he has remained.
Beginning in 1959 Dulbecco introduced the idea of cell transformation into biology. In this process special cells are mixed in vitro with such tumor-producing viruses as the polyoma and SV40 virus. With some cells a ‘productive infection’ results, where the virus multiplies unchecked in the cell and finally kills its host. However in other cells this unlimited multiplication does not occur and the virus instead induces changes similar to those in cancer cells; that is, the virus alters the cell so that it reproduces without restraint and does not respond to the presence of neighboring cells. A normal cell had in fact been transformed into a ‘cancer cell’ in vitro.
The significance of this work was to provide an experimental set-up where the processes by which a normal cell becomes cancerous can be studied in a relatively simplified form. It was for this work that Dulbecco was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1975, sharing it with Howard Temin and David Baltimore.
In March 1986 Dulbecco published a widely read paper in Science, entitled A Turning Point in Science, in which he argued that “if we wish to learn more about cancer, we must now concentrate on the cellular genome.” The paper appeared shortly after various groups of scientists had held a meeting at Sante Fe to discuss sequencing the entire human genome. Dulbecco's timely paper publicized the project, gave it some authority, and linked it with a practical purpose.
| Columbia Encyclopedia: Renato Dulbecco |
Dulbecco, Renato (rənät'ō dŭlbĕk'ō), 1914-, American biologist, b. Catanzaro, Italy. In the 1950s he and co-researcher Marguerite Vogt gained insight into how viruses infect cells by pioneering the technique of growing viruses in culture. In 1970, Dulbecco and two of his students, Howard M. Temin and David Baltimore, experimentally verified Temin's hypothesis that cancer cells affect genetic material. For this discovery the three were awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
| Wikipedia: Renato Dulbecco |
| Renato Dulbecco | |
|---|---|
 Renato Dulbecco
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| Born | February 22, 1914 (age 95) Catanzaro |
| Nationality | Italy United States |
| Fields | Virologist |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology Salk Institute London Research Institute |
| Alma mater | University of Turin |
| Known for | Reverse transcriptase |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975 |
Renato Dulbecco (born February 22, 1914) is an Italian virologist who won a 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on reverse transcriptase. In 1973 he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University together with Theodore Puck and Harry Eagle.
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Early life
He was born in Catanzaro (Southern Italy) to a Calabrese mother and a Ligurian father. He graduated from high school at 16, then moved to the University of Turin. Despite a strong interest for mathematics and physics, he decided to study medicine. At only 22, he graduated in morbid anatomy and pathology under the supervision of professor Giuseppe Levi. During these years he met Salvador Luria and Rita Levi-Montalcini, whose friendship and encouragement would later bring him to the United States. In 1936 he was called up for military service as a medical officer, and later (1938) discharged. In 1940 Italy entered World War II and Dulbecco was recalled and sent to the front in France and Russia, where he was wounded. After hospitalization and the collapse of Fascism, he joined the resistance against the German occupation.
Scientific career
After the war he resumed his work at Levi's laboratory, but soon he moved, together with Levi-Montalcini, to the USA, where, in Bloomington, Indiana, he worked with Salvador Luria on bacteriophages. In the summer of 1949 he moved to Caltech, joining Max Delbrück's group. There he started his studies about animal oncoviruses.[1] In the late 1950s, he took Howard Temin as a student, with whom, and together with David Baltimore, he would later share the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for "their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour viruses and the genetic material of the cell." Temin and Baltimore arrived at the discovery of reverse transcriptase simultaneously and independently from each other; although Dulbecco did not take direct part in either of their experiments, he had taught the two methods they used to make the discovery.[2]
Throughout this time he also worked with Marguerite Vogt. In 1962, he moved to the Salk Institute and then in 1972 to The Imperial Cancer Research Fund (now named the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute). In 1986 he was among the scientists who launched the Human Genome Project.[3][4][5] In 1993 he moved back to Italy, where he is currently president of the Institute of Biomedical Technologies at C.N.R. (National Council of Research) in Milan. He also retains his position on the faculty of Salk Institute for Biological Studies.
Nobel Prize Awarding
Dulbecco and his group demonstrated that the infection of normal cells with certain types of viruses (oncoviruses) led to the incorporation of virus-derived genes into the host-cell genome, and that this event lead to the transformation (the acquisition of a tumor phenotype) of those cells. As demonstrated by Temin and Baltimore, who shared the Nobel Prize with Dulbecco, the transfer of viral genes to the cell is mediated by an enzyme called reverse transcriptase (or, more precisely, RNA-dependent DNA polymerase), which replicates the viral genome (in this case made of RNA) into DNA, which is later incorporated in the host genome.
Oncoviruses are the cause of some forms of human cancers. Dulbecco's study gave a basis for precise understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which they propagate, thus allowing us to better fight them. Furthermore, the mechanisms of carcinogenesis mediated by oncoviruses closely resemble the process by which normal cells degenerate into cancer cells. Dulbecco's discoveries allowed us to better understand and fight cancer.
References
- ^ Dulbecco R., From the molecular biology of oncogenic DNA viruses to cancer, Science. 1976 Apr 30;192(4238):437-40.
- ^ Judson, Horace (2003-10-20). "No Nobel Prize for Whining". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C02E4DE123EF933A15753C1A9659C8B63. Retrieved 2007-08-03.
- ^ Dulbecco R., A turning point in cancer research: Sequencing the genome, Science, 1986, 231: 1055-56.
- ^ Lewin R., Proposal to sequence the human genome stirs debate., Science. 1986 Jun 27;232(4758):1598-600.
- ^ Noll H., Sequencing the human genome, Science. 1986 Jul 11;233(4760):143.
External links
- Nobel autobiography
- Renato Dulbecco video at the Peoples Archive
- The Official Site of Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
- Dulbecco's profile at the Salk Institute
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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