2025-26 Academic Year Welcome
To: The Caltech Community
From: Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and Professor of Physics
If you attend a black tie affair and want to meet every luminary in the room (99% confidence level) and every biologist in the room (100% confidence level) there is a simple strategy. Stand next to David Baltimore. I unwittingly performed this experiment at a Breakthrough Prize reception last year. A shifting cluster of guests surrounded David, some to revisit collaborations over the years, others to hear his perspectives on the future. David generously included me in the conversations.
David Baltimore famously received the Nobel Prize at age 37 for his revolutionary discoveries about viruses and retroviruses, redefining the directions of molecular biology. For some, this level of achievement is the high point of their career, and the succeeding years are epilogue. For David, it was prologue.
He directed a vibrant laboratory effort until age 80, mentoring hundreds of students and postdocs, now spread throughout academia and industry across the world. He was active in framing the future of biology and medicine through conferences, national studies, and writings. He shepherded science and engineering more broadly as the founder of the Whitehead Institute at MIT, and as president of Rockefeller University and Caltech.
David maintained that it was necessary to think of biology in the context of the human condition. In his own words on receiving the 2021 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science: "By focusing on basic science I have been able to have an impact on cancer, on AIDS, on immunology. And that is extremely rewarding. It proves the adage that basic science is the seed corn of societal impact." He applied his energy and used his influence to further shape the interface of science and society, advocating early on for federal AIDS research, launching the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, and most recently convening international efforts to develop ethical boundaries for human genome editing.
David's passing on September 6 was a grievous loss. But the example he set could not be more salient for these fraught times. David was idealistic about the power of wonder and the ingenuity it inspires. He saw the Institute as a special place because "…Caltech people largely find [meaning] in the continual contest with Nature." He relished the intersection of science with the arts, and the transformative possibilities of a life enriched by both. He worried that we were losing the capacity to cultivate extraordinary talent in ways that supported unconventional thinking. He gave selflessly of his time to nurture individuals and institutions alike.
It is the people, above all, that make Caltech such a special place. We each have the potential to set an example that strengthens our community, building on the values that bind us together, furthering our mission of discovery, and preparing the next generation of intellectual leaders. There is no better time than the beginning of the academic year, with new colleagues setting out on their individual Caltech journeys, to come together in common purpose for the commonweal.