Baruch Blumberg, who went by the nickname Barry, is best known for winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for discovering hepatitis B virus and development of a vaccine against this disease. But he often lived life away from the laboratory. It therefore seems appropriate that when he died Tuesday at age 85, apparently of a heart attack, he was hundreds of miles from his home base in Philadelphia, at a NASA conference in California. Blumberg had spent many years involved in the astrobiology program at NASA, including at one time as its leader.
Last summer Science Blumberg visited at his home in Philadelphia city center for a story about the retirement of researchers who have large collections of samples. Blumberg it was among the most massive: when we talked, he guessed he had amassed 450,000 blood samples during his career. To acquire, he checked where he had traveled: West Africa, the Arctic, Romania, Italy, Taiwan, the Pacific Islands, and more. "I wore a lab worldwide," he said. Its geographical scope was so great that his face appeared on stamps in the Maldives and Angola.
Blumberg has spent most her career at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the city and was eager to talk about hepatitis B and the importance of vaccination. But he was just as happy talk about its other activities. he was then president of the American Philosophical Society, which was founded by Benjamin Franklin and was still kayaking and hiking and an active amateur photographer was also a member of the Explorers Club of New York- "There is a branch here in Philadelphia. " he said.
This reporter had scribbled "young 85" in his notes when talking with Blumberg. The verve with which he still lived life made this plain.
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