Blumberg, Baruch Samuel (1925-2011), an American research physician and biochemist, shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine with fellow American scientist D. Carleton Gajdusek. They received the prize for discoveries concerning the origin and spread of infectious diseases.
From 1957 to 1964, while working for the National Institutes of Health, Blumberg traveled to Africa, South America, Europe, and Australia. There he and others performed clinical services and conducted several surveys on public health. Blumberg was interested in the problem of why members of different ethnic groups can vary so greatly in their biological responses to disease. He compared blood samples from various ethnic and national groups. He discovered an antigen (a substance that provokes the body to produce antibodies to counteract it). The antigen that became known as the “Australia antigen” because it was first found in a blood sample taken from an Aboriginal Australian. Blumberg demonstrated that this antigen was associated with hepatitis B, a disease that affects the liver. This discovery led to screening techniques to prevent the spread of hepatitis B.
Blumberg’s research into the distribution of the hepatitis B virus revealed that seemingly healthy people could be carriers of the virus. In 1969, Blumberg developed a protective vaccine against the virus.
Blumberg was born on July 28, 1925, in New York City. He received an M.D. at Columbia University in the United States in 1951, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oxford University in England in 1957. In 1964, he joined the faculty of the Institute for Cancer Research, now the Fox Chase Cancer Center, a center for cancer research, prevention, and treatment in Philadelphia. He became professor of medicine and anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in 1977. Blumberg became the first director of the Institute of Astrobiology of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in 1999. He retired as the institute’s director in 2002. But he remained on the staff of the Institute of Astrobiology and the Fox Chase Cancer Center and continued to teach at the University of Pennsylvania until his death. Blumberg died on April 5, 2011.
