Howard Martin Temin

Biography

Howard Martin Temin (December 10, 1934 – February 9, 1994) was an American geneticist and virologist . He discovered reverse transcriptase in the 1970s [ 1 ] at the University of Wisconsin–Madison , for which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Renato Dulbecco and David Baltimore . [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Temin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , to Jewish parents, Annette (Lehman), an activist, and Henry Temin, an attorney. [ 4 ] As a high school student at Central High School in Philadelphia, he participated in the Jackson Laboratory 's Summer Student Program in Bar Harbor, Maine . The director of the program, C.C. Little , told his parents that Temin was "unquestionably the finest scientist of the fifty-seven students who have attended the program since the beginning...I can't help but feel this boy is destined to become a really great man in the field of science." [ 4 ] Temin said that his experience at the Jackson Laboratory is what originally interested him in science. [ 5 ] Temin's parents raised their family to have values associated with social justice and independent thinking, which was evident throughout his life. For Temin's bar mitzvah , the family donated money that would have been spent on the party to a local camp for displaced persons. Temin was also the valedictorian of his class and he devoted his speech to relevant issues at the time including the recent hydrogen bomb activity and the news of sending a man to the moon. [ 4 ] Fields: Genetics, Virology Education: Swarthmore College BA California Institute of Technology PhD

About the Lasker Award

The Lasker Awards have been awarded annually since 1946 to living persons who have made major contributions to medical science or who have performed public service on behalf of medicine. They are administered by the Lasker Foundation, founded by advertising pioneer Albert Lasker and his wife Mary Woodard Lasker (a medical research activist). The awards are sometimes referred to as "America's Nobels."

Quick Facts

• Award: Lasker Award - Basic Medical Research
• Added: 2026-02-07
• Source: Wikipedia
• Established: 1946
• Presented by: Lasker Foundation

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