Renato Dulbecco
Encyclopedia
Renato Dulbecco 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
. Dulbecco was the recipient of the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology
from the National Academy of Sciences
in 1974.
) to a Calabrese
mother and a Liguria
n 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
.
, but soon he moved, together with Levi-Montalcini, to the USA, where, in Bloomington
, Indiana
, he worked with Salvador Luria on bacteriophage
s. In the summer of 1949 he moved to Caltech
, joining Max Delbrück
's group. There he started his studies about animal
oncovirus
es. 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 virus
es 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.
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 scientist
s who launched the Human Genome Project
. 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
.
s 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
cancer
s. 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.
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
for his work on reverse transcriptase
Reverse transcriptase
In the fields of molecular biology and biochemistry, a reverse transcriptase, also known as RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, is a DNA polymerase enzyme that transcribes single-stranded RNA into single-stranded DNA. It also helps in the formation of a double helix DNA once the RNA has been reverse...
. In 1973 he was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry is an annual prize awarded by Columbia University to a researcher or group of researchers that have made an outstanding contribution in basic research in the fields of biology or biochemistry....
from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
together with Theodore Puck
Theodore Puck
Theodore Puck was an American geneticist born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago public schools and obtained his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree from the University of Chicago...
and Harry Eagle
Harry Eagle
Harry Eagle was an American physician and pathologist. He studied, and later worked, at Johns Hopkins University before moving on to the National Institutes of Health. From 1961 to 1988 he worked at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine...
. Dulbecco was the recipient of the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology
Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology
The Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology is awarded by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences "in recognition of excellence in the field of microbiology." Named after Selman Waksman, it was first awarded in 1968....
from the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
in 1974.
Early life
Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro (Southern ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
) to a Calabrese
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
mother and a Liguria
Liguria
Liguria is a coastal region of north-western Italy, the third smallest of the Italian regions. Its capital is Genoa. It is a popular region with tourists for its beautiful beaches, picturesque little towns, and good food.-Geography:...
n father. He graduated from high school at 16, then moved to the University of Turin
University of Turin
The University of Turin is a university in the city of Turin in the Piedmont region of north-western Italy...
. Despite a strong interest for mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
, he decided to study medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. At only 22, he graduated in morbid anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
and pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
under the supervision of professor Giuseppe Levi. During these years he met Salvador Luria and Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini , Knight Grand Cross is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of nerve growth factor...
, whose friendship and encouragement would later bring him to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. In 1936 he was called up for military service as a medical officer, and later (1938) discharged. In 1940 Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
entered World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and Dulbecco was recalled and sent to the front in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, where he was wounded. After hospitalization and the collapse of Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
, he joined the resistance
Resistance during World War II
Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns...
against the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
occupation
Military occupation
Military occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
.
Scientific career
After the war he resumed his work at Levi's laboratoryLaboratory
A laboratory is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. The title of laboratory is also used for certain other facilities where the processes or equipment used are similar to those in scientific laboratories...
, but soon he moved, together with Levi-Montalcini, to the USA, where, in Bloomington
Bloomington, Indiana
Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the southern region of the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 80,405 at the 2010 census....
, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, he worked with Salvador Luria on bacteriophage
Bacteriophage
A bacteriophage is any one of a number of viruses that infect bacteria. They do this by injecting genetic material, which they carry enclosed in an outer protein capsid...
s. In the summer of 1949 he moved to Caltech
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, joining Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Delbrück was born in Berlin, German Empire...
's group. There he started his studies about animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
oncovirus
Oncovirus
An oncovirus is a virus that can cause cancer. This term originated from studies of acutely-transforming retroviruses in the 1950–60s, often called oncornaviruses to denote their RNA virus origin. It now refers to any virus with a DNA or RNA genome causing cancer and is synonymous with "tumor...
es. In the late 1950s, he took Howard Temin as a student, with whom, and together with David Baltimore
David Baltimore
David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...
, he would later share the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
for "their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumour virus
Virus
A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...
es and the genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
material of the cell
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....
." 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.
Throughout this time he also worked with Marguerite Vogt
Marguerite Vogt
Marguerite Vogt, MD was a cancer biologist and virologist. She was most noted for her research on polio and cancer at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.-Early life:...
. 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
London Research Institute
The Cancer Research UK London Research Institute is a biological research facility whose aim is to conduct research into the basic biology of cancer...
). In 1986 he was among the scientist
Scientist
A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge. In a more restricted sense, a scientist is an individual who uses the scientific method. The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science. This article focuses on the more restricted use of the word...
s who launched the Human Genome Project
Human Genome Project
The Human Genome Project is an international scientific research project with a primary goal of determining the sequence of chemical base pairs which make up DNA, and of identifying and mapping the approximately 20,000–25,000 genes of the human genome from both a physical and functional...
. 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
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
. He also retains his position on the faculty of Salk Institute for Biological Studies
Salk Institute for Biological Studies
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies is a premier independent, non-profit, scientific research institute located in La Jolla, California. It was founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine; among the founding consultants were Jacob Bronowski and Francis Crick. Building...
.
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 geneGene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
s into the host-cell genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
, and that this event lead to the transformation (the acquisition of a tumor phenotype
Phenotype
A phenotype is an organism's observable characteristics or traits: such as its morphology, development, biochemical or physiological properties, behavior, and products of behavior...
) of those cells. As demonstrated by Temin and Baltimore, who shared the Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
with Dulbecco, the transfer of viral genes to the cell is mediated by an enzyme
Enzyme
Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. In enzymatic reactions, the molecules at the beginning of the process, called substrates, are converted into different molecules, called products. Almost all chemical reactions in a biological cell need enzymes in order to occur at rates...
called reverse transcriptase
Reverse transcriptase
In the fields of molecular biology and biochemistry, a reverse transcriptase, also known as RNA-dependent DNA polymerase, is a DNA polymerase enzyme that transcribes single-stranded RNA into single-stranded DNA. It also helps in the formation of a double helix DNA once the RNA has been reverse...
(or, more precisely, RNA-dependent DNA polymerase
DNA polymerase
A DNA polymerase is an enzyme that helps catalyze in the polymerization of deoxyribonucleotides into a DNA strand. DNA polymerases are best known for their feedback role in DNA replication, in which the polymerase "reads" an intact DNA strand as a template and uses it to synthesize the new strand....
), which replicates the viral genome (in this case made of RNA
RNA
Ribonucleic acid , or RNA, is one of the three major macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life....
) into DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, which is later incorporated in the host genome.
Oncoviruses are the cause of some forms of human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
s. Dulbecco's study gave a basis for precise understanding of the molecular
Molecule
A molecule is an electrically neutral group of at least two atoms held together by covalent chemical bonds. Molecules are distinguished from ions by their electrical charge...
mechanisms by which they propagate, thus allowing us to better fight them. Furthermore, the mechanisms of carcinogenesis
Carcinogenesis
Carcinogenesis or oncogenesis is literally the creation of cancer. It is a process by which normal cells are transformed into cancer cells...
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.