The Baltimore Case: A Trial of Politics, Science, and Character

David Baltimore won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1975 at the age of 37. Known as something of a wunderkind in the field of immunology, Baltimore rose quickly through the ranks of the scientific community to become the president of the distinguished Rockefeller University. Less than a year and a half after he went to Rockefeller, Baltimore fell from grace. Citing the personal toll of fighting a long battle over an allegedly fraudulent paper he had collaborated on in 1986 when at MIT, Baltimore resigned from the presidency. While never suspected of faking anything himself, he had stubbornly defended the integrity and work of his colleague, Thereza Imanishi-Kari, one of six coauthors of the disputed paper. Daniel J. Kevles tells the complete story of this complex case, documenting the relentless hounding of a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and his colleague and illuminating the multitude of characters and investigations that swirled around them. Above all, The Baltimore Case reminds us how important the issues of government oversight and scientific integrity have become and will continue to be in a culture in which increasingly complicated technology widens the divide between scientists and society.