1 | Name: | Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg | |
Institution: | NASA Astrobiology Institute & Fox Chase Cancer Center & University of Pennsylvania | ||
Year Elected: | 1986 | ||
Class: | 2. Biological Sciences | ||
Subdivision: | 204. Medicine, Surgery, Pathology and Immunology | ||
Residency: | Resident | ||
Living? : | Deceased | ||
Birth Date: | 1925 | ||
Death Date: | April 5, 2011 | ||
Baruch S. Blumberg served as the President of the American Philosophical Society 2005-2011. He was a Distinguished Scientist at Fox Chase Cancer Center and University Professor of Medicine and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. From May 1999 until October 2002, he served as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Astrobiology Institute headquartered at Ames Research Center (ARC). He was Senior Advisor to the Administrator of NASA (2000-01), and Principal Scientist of the NASA Division of Fundamental Space Biology (2002-04). In October 2008 he was appointed Distinguished Scientist at ARC associated with the NASA Lunar Science Institute and the Astrobiology Institute. He was Master of Balliol College, Oxford University, from 1989 to 1994 and, prior to that, Associate Director for Clinical Research at Fox Chase. He was on the staff of the National Institutes of Health from 1957 to 1964. Dr. Blumberg earned his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, in 1951 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford University in 1957. Dr. Blumberg's research covered many areas including clinical research, epidemiology, virology, genetics, anthropology, and space-related biological science. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1976 for "discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases" and specifically, for the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus. In 1993 he and his co-inventor, Dr. Irving Millman, were elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame for their Hepatitis B vaccine and the diagnostic test for Hepatitis B. Dr. Blumberg was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1986. He died April 5, 2011, at the age of 85, in Moffett Field, California. |