Baruch S. Blumberg is Distinguished
Scientist, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Professor
of Medicine and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania. He was the
Director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (1999–2002), Senior Advisor to
the Administrator of NASA (2001–2002), Principal Scientist in Fundamental
Space Biology (2003–2004) and
Master of Balliol College (1989–1994). He earned an M.D. degree from the
College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, (1951), and D. Phil.
in Biochemistry from Oxford University (1957).
He was awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize for "discoveries concerning new mechanisms
for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases" and, specifically,
for the discovery of the Hepatitis B virus and invention of the hepatitis
B vaccine. He is currently President of the American Philosophical Society.
