Dulbecco, Renato (1914– )

Italian biologist who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1975 with David Baltimore and Howard Temin for their work on the interactions between tumour-inducing viruses and the genetic material of the cell. Their work was based on the cancer-causing properties of the genes of papovaviruses, circular DNA viruses that integrate into the host cell's DNA, producing a cell clone in which the virus is maintained.

Dulbecco described the molecular basis of the cancer-causing (oncogenic) properties of a group of viruses, the papovaviruses, particularly polyoma and SV40. Papovaviruses induce a cancer-like state in some cell cultures, a process called cell transformation. The principal transforming factor of these viruses is the T-antigen, which alters gene expression in the transformed cell clones. If the viruses replicate and lyse (destroy by disintegrating) a cell in culture they do not integrate.

Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro in Italy and studied medicine in Turin before joining the Resistance movement during World War II. He emigrated to the USA in 1947 and, after holding several academic appointments there, moved to the UK to take up the post of deputy director of research at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in London. He finally settled in California in 1977 to work at the Salk Institute.