Dulbecco, Renato

Dulbecco, Renato (runät'ō dŭlbek'ō) [key], 1914–, American biologist, b. Catanzaro, Italy. In the 1950s he and co-researcher Marguerite Vogt gained insight into how viruses infect cells by pioneering the technique of growing viruses in culture. In 1970, Dulbecco and two of his students, Howard M. Temin and David Baltimore, experimentally verified Temin's hypothesis that cancer cells affect genetic material. For this discovery the three were awarded the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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