Entering tumour-virus research
Temin studied biology at Swarthmore College before graduate work at Caltech. In Renato Dulbecco’s laboratory he investigated Rous sarcoma virus in close collaboration with Harry Rubin and completed his doctorate in 1959.
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The DNA provirus hypothesis
He joined the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1960. His experiments led him to propose that the genetic information of an RNA virus could be copied into DNA. In 1970 his team and Baltimore’s independent work identified an enzyme in RNA tumour-virus particles that synthesised DNA from an RNA template: reverse transcriptase.
Shared recognition and wider research
Temin shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Baltimore and Dulbecco for discoveries about tumour viruses and cellular genetic material. He also studied the control of cultured-cell multiplication and the role of growth-stimulating serum factors.