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Renato Dulbecco
A recent obituary in The Guardian newspaper describes the life, work, and some words of the virologist and molecular biologist Renato Dulbecco.
Dulbecco died on February 19 this year aged 97 years. He made some fundamental discoveries regarding the cause(s) of cancer.
Dulbecco demonstrated that cancer causing changes occur when viral genetic material enters and combines with a host nucleus, taking over and blocking normal genetic control mechanisms.
Dulbecco shared the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine in 1975. When he received the prize he said: “While we spend our lives asking questions about the nature of cancer and ways to prevent or cure it, society merrily produces oncogenic (cancer causing) substances and permeates the environment with them. Indeed, society does not seem prepared to accept the sacrifices required for effective cancer prevention.”