Howard Martin Temin

Howard Martin Temin (December 10, 1934 –

February 9, 1994) was an American geneticist and Howard Temin
ForMemRS
virologist. He discovered reverse transcriptase in the
1970s[1] at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for
which he shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine with Renato Dulbecco and David
Baltimore.[2][3]

Early life and education

Temin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to
Jewish parents, Annette (Lehman), an activist, and
Henry Temin, an attorney.[4] As a high school student
at Central High School in Philadelphia, he participated
in the Jackson Laboratory's Summer Student Program
in Bar Harbor, Maine. The director of the program, Temin in 1975
C.C. Little, told his parents that Temin was Born Howard Martin Temin
"unquestionably the finest scientist of the fifty-seven December 10, 1934
students who have attended the program since the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S
beginning...I can't help but feel this boy is destined to Died February 9, 1994 (aged 59)
become a really great man in the field of science."[4] Madison, Wisconsin, U.S
Temin said that his experience at Jackson's Laboratory
Nationality American
is what originally interested him in science.[5]
Alma mater Swarthmore College
Temin's parents raised their family to have values California Institute of Technology
associated with social justice and independent (PhD)
thinking, which was evident throughout his life. For
Known for Reverse transcriptase
Temin's bar mitzvah, the family donated money that
would have been spent on the party to a local camp for Spouse Rayla Greenberg ​(m. 1962)​
displaced persons. Temin was also the valedictorian of Children 2
his class and he devoted his speech to relevant issues at Awards NAS Award in Molecular Biology
the time including the recent hydrogen bomb activity (1972)
and the news of sending a man to the moon.[4]
Pfizer Award in Enzyme
Chemistry (1973)
Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine (1975)

Scientific career
Fields Genetics
Temin received a bachelor's degree from Swarthmore Virology
College in 1955 majoring and minoring in biology in Institutions University of Wisconsin–Madison
the honors program. He received his doctorate degree
Thesis The interaction of Rous sarcoma
in animal virology from the California Institute of
virus and cells in vitro (http://resol
Technology in 1960.[5]
ver.caltech.edu/CaltechETD:etd-
10222002-093114) (1960)

Career and research Doctoral Edward F. Fritsch

students
Temin's first exposure to experimental science was
during his time at the California Institute of Technology as a graduate student in laboratory of Professor
Renato Dulbecco.[5] Temin originally studied embryology at Caltech, but after about a year and a half, he
switched to animal virology. He became interested Dulbecco's lab after a chance run-in with Harry Rubin,
a postdoctoral fellow in Dulbecco's lab. In the lab, Temin studied the Rous sarcoma virus, a tumor-
causing virus that infects chickens.[4] During his research on the virus, he observed that mutations in the
virus yielded alterations in the structural characteristics of the infected cell – thus, integration into the
cell's genome was occurring. As part of his doctoral thesis, Temin stated that the Rous Sarcoma Virus has
"some kind of close relationship with the genome of the infected cell".[4] Following receiving his
doctorate, Temin continued to work in Dulbecco's lab as a postdoctoral fellow.

In 1960, the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison recruited
Temin as a virologist; a position that had been hard to fill because, at the time, virology was not
considered pertinent to cancer research. Even though Temin knew he would be completely independent in
Madison, because of the lack of research involving virology and oncology together, Temin stated that he
was "supremely self-confident".[5] When he first arrived in Madison in 1960, he found an unprepared
laboratory in the basement of a rundown building with an office that could be considered a closet. Until a
more suitable laboratory could be prepared, he continued his research with RSV at a friend's laboratory at
the University of Illinois. Later that year, he returned to Madison, continued his RSV research in his own
lab, and began his position as an assistant professor.[5]

While studying the Rous sarcoma virus at UW-Madison, Temin began to refer to the genetic material that
the virus introduced to the cells, the "provirus". Using the antibiotic, actinomycin D, which inhibits the
expression of DNA, he determined that the provirus was DNA or was located on the cell's DNA.[6][7][8]
These results implied that the infecting Rous sarcoma virus was somehow generating complementary
double-stranded DNA. Temin's description of how tumor viruses act on the genetic material of the cell
through reverse transcription was revolutionary. This upset the widely held belief at the time of a
popularized version of the "Central Dogma" of molecular biology posited by Nobel laureate Francis
Crick, one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA (along with James Watson and Rosalind
Franklin). Crick had claimed only that sequence information cannot flow out of protein into DNA or
RNA, but he was commonly interpreted as saying that information flows exclusively from DNA to RNA
to protein. Many highly respected scientists disregarded his work and declared it impossible. Despite the
lack of support from the scientific community, Temin continued to search for evidence to support his
idea. In 1969, Temin and a postdoctoral fellow, Satoshi Mizutani, began searching for the enzyme that
was responsible for the phenomenon of viral RNA being transferred into proviral DNA.[4] Later that year,
Temin showed that certain tumor viruses carried the enzymatic ability to reverse the flow of information
from RNA back to DNA using reverse transcriptase. Reverse transcriptase was also independently and
simultaneously discovered in association with the murine leukemia virus by David Baltimore at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[9] In 1975, Baltimore and Temin shared the Nobel Prize of
Physiology or Medicine.[10] Both scientists completed their initial work with RNA-dependent DNA
polymerase with the Rous sarcoma virus.

The discovery of reverse transcriptase is one of the most important of the modern era of medicine, as
reverse transcriptase is the central enzyme in several widespread viral diseases such as AIDS and
Hepatitis B. Reverse transcriptase is also an important component of several important techniques in
molecular biology, such as the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, and diagnostic medicine.

Mentoring
Temin has mentored some PhD students, including Edward F. Fritsch, co-author of the most-cited book of
all time.[11]

Awards and honors

Temin was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1973),[12] the United States
National Academy of Sciences (1974), and the American Philosophical Society (1978).[13] In 1992 Temin
received the National Medal of Science. Temin was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society
(ForMemRS) in 1988.[14][15]

Following winning the Nobel Prize, Temin focused his research mainly on studying the viral sequences
that control the packaging of viral RNA, developing a new vaccine for HIV, and studying the mechanisms
of retroviral variation.[5]

Life and career post-Nobel Prize

After receiving the Nobel Prize in 1975, Temin went from a rebel in the scientific community to a highly
respected researcher. Temin began receiving international recognition for his work, and used his newly
acquired fame to improve the world. An example of this was in October 1976; Temin helped scientists in
the Soviet Union that were targeted by the KGB, the secret police in the Soviet Union. The Jewish Soviet
scientists had been stripped of their jobs and oppressed after requesting visas to emigrate to Israel. Temin
made it his mission to personally visit the scientists and their families. He gave them gifts that could be
resold to help them financially, and he gave the scientists copies of scientific journals, which had been
banned by the KGB.[16] On one occasion, Howard Temin gave a lecture to some of the Jewish Soviet
scientists in someone's home. The next morning, almost all of scientists that had attended the lecture were
arrested. After they were released, Temin tape-recorded one of the scientist's account of the event and
gave the tape to newspapers in the United States so that the situation that Jewish scientists were facing
would be publicized.[4]

Another example of Temin trying to improve the world was at the Nobel Prize reception. After receiving
the Nobel Prize from King Carl Gustav of Sweden; Temin addressed the smokers in the audience, which
included the Queen of Denmark, saying he was "outraged that one major measure available to prevent
much cancer, namely the cessation of smoking, had not been more widely adopted". He had also insisted
that the ashtray located on the laureates' table be removed.[4]
After winning the Nobel Prize, Temin also became more active in the scientific community outside of
research. He was involved in over 14 scientific journals. In 1979, he became an advisory member for the
director of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and a member of the human gene therapy subgroup of
the recombinant DNA advisory committee. He was also a member of the National Cancer Advisory
Board, and the chairman of the AIDS subcommittee. At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID), he was the chairman of a genetic variation advisory panel on the development of
AIDS, and was a member of vaccine advisory board. In the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), he was
a member of the Waksman Award committee and report review committee. In 1986, Temin became a
member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM)/NAS committee for national strategy for public policy issues
associated with AIDS. The last committee Temin served on was the World Health Organization Advisory
Council.[5]

In 1981, Temin became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[17]

Death and legacy

Temin taught and conducted research at UW-Madison until he died of lung cancer, on February 9,
1994.[14] He was survived by his wife Rayla, a geneticist at UW-Madison, two daughters, and two
brothers, Peter Temin, also an academic, and Michael Temin, a lawyer.

See also
List of Jewish Nobel laureates

References
1. Temin HM, Mizutani S (June 1970). "RNA-dependent DNA polymerase in virions of Rous
sarcoma virus". Nature. 226 (5252): 1211–3. Bibcode:1970Natur.226.1211T (https://ui.adsa
bs.harvard.edu/abs/1970Natur.226.1211T). doi:10.1038/2261211a0 (https://doi.org/10.103
8%2F2261211a0). PMID 4316301 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4316301).
S2CID 4187764 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4187764).
2. Howard Martin Temin (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/408) on Nobelprize.org ,
accessed 11 October 2020
3. Homage to Howard Temin (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv.fcgi?rid=rv.ded.4)
4. Harman, Oren S., and Michael R. Dietrich. Rebels, Mavericks, and Heretics in Biology. New
Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Print.
5. Temin, Howard M. "Oral History Project: Howard M. Temin." Interview. 1993. 1–22. Oral
History Program, Archives, Steenbock Library, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
6. Temin Howard M (1963). "The Effects of Actinomycin D. on Growth of Rous Sarcoma Virus
in vitro". Virology. 20 (4): 577–82. doi:10.1016/0042-6822(63)90282-4 (https://doi.org/10.101
6%2F0042-6822%2863%2990282-4). PMID 14059825 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14
059825).
7. Temin Howard M (1972). "RNA-Directed DNA Synthesis". Scientific American. 226 (1): 27.
Bibcode:1972SciAm.226a..24T (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972SciAm.226a..24T).
doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0172-24 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fscientificamerican0172-2
4). PMID 4332962 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4332962).
 8. Temin, H. M. (1964). "Homology Between Rna from Rous Sarcoma Virous and Dna from
Rous Sarcoma Virus-Infected Cells" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC30027
9). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 52
(2): 323–9. Bibcode:1964PNAS...52..323T (https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1964PNAS...5
2..323T). doi:10.1073/pnas.52.2.323 (https://doi.org/10.1073%2Fpnas.52.2.323).
PMC 300279 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300279). PMID 14206598 (htt
ps://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14206598).
9. Baltimore D (June 1970). "RNA-dependent DNA polymerase in virions of RNA tumour
viruses". Nature. 226 (5252): 1209–11. Bibcode:1970Natur.226.1209B (https://ui.adsabs.har
vard.edu/abs/1970Natur.226.1209B). doi:10.1038/2261209a0 (https://doi.org/10.1038%2F2
261209a0). PMID 4316300 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4316300). S2CID 4222378 (htt
ps://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:4222378).
10. Judson, Horace (October 20, 2003). "No Nobel Prize for Whining" (https://www.nytimes.co
m/2003/10/20/opinion/no-nobel-prize-for-whining.html). New York Times. Retrieved
December 26, 2021.
11. "About us" (https://www.ucir.org/about-us). UCIR. Understanding Cancer Immunotherapy
Research. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
12. "Howard Martin Temin" (https://www.amacad.org/person/howard-martin-temin). American
Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
13. "APS Member History" (https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Howard+Tem
in&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advance
d). search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved July 13, 2022.
14. Dulbecco, R. (1995). "Howard M. Temin. 10 December 1934-9 February 1994" (https://doi.or
g/10.1098%2Frsbm.1995.0028). Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 41
(4): 471–80. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1995.0028 (https://doi.org/10.1098%2Frsbm.1995.0028).
PMID 11615362 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11615362).
15. "Fellowship of the Royal Society 1660–2015" (https://web.archive.org/web/2015101518582
0/https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah12
8gQR-NM/pubhtml). London: Royal Society. Archived from the original (https://docs.google.c
om/spreadsheets/d/1RVVZY00MZNrK2YCTTzVrbTFH2t3RxoAZah128gQR-NM/pubhtml) on
October 15, 2015.
16. "Temin loses his audience to KGB." The Capital Times. December 16, 1976. Howard Temin
Papers, Archives, Steenbock Library, University of Wisconsin – Madison.
17. "About Us" (http://www.consejoculturalmundial.org/about-us/). World Cultural Council.
Retrieved November 8, 2016.

External links
Bill Sugden, "Howard M. Temin", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
(2001) (http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/temin-how
ard.pdf)
Howard M. Temin (https://www.nobelprize.org/laureate/408) on Nobelprize.org

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