biography
| name: |
Blumberg, Baruch S(amuel)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1925– )
|
| biography:
| Epidemiologist, born in New York City, New York, USA. He worked and performed research in New York City hospitals (1951–5), then became a biochemist at Oxford University (1955–7). He moved to the National Institutes of Health (1957–64), where he investigated protein variations in human populations from around the world. In 1963 while studying antibodies in the serum of multitransfused blood recipients, he discovered the ‘Australian’ antigen, which proved to be associated with the hepatitis B virus. This finding led to hepatitis B screening programmes by blood banks, and he shared the 1976 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. At the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia (1964) he developed a hepatitis B vaccine (1982) and presented evidence that this disease may lead to liver cancer. While continuing at the Fox Chase Center, he concurrently became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania (1977), clinical professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington, Seattle (1983–9), and Master at Balliol College, Oxford (1989). |
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