Baruch Samuel Blumberg

American doctor

Born: July 28, 1925  ·  Died: April 5, 2011

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Baruch Samuel Blumberg
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Overview

Achievement

(That school also had among its students a contemporary of Blumberg, Eric Kandel, who is another recipient of the Nobel Prize in medicine.

Who was Baruch Samuel Blumberg?

Baruch Samuel Blumberg (July 28, 1925 – April 5, 2011), known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (with Daniel Carleton Gajdusek), for his work on the hepatitis B virus while an investigator at the NIH and at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Blumberg was born in Brooklyn, New York, into a Jewish family, the son of Ida (Simonoff) and Meyer Blumberg, a lawyer. He first attended the Orthodox Yeshivah of Flatbush for elementary school, where–in addition to all regular school subjects–he learned to read and write in Hebrew, and to study the Bible and Jewish texts in their original language. He was president of the American Philosophical Society from 2005 until his death.

1999 press conference at which Blumberg was introduced as the first director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
1999 press conference at which Blumberg was introduced as the first director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute
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Historical significance

Blumberg and Gajdusek received the Nobel Prize for discovering "new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases." Blumberg identified the hepatitis B virus, and later developed its diagnostic test and vaccine. Baruch Samuel Blumberg, known as Barry Blumberg, was an American physician, geneticist, and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for his work on the hepatitis B virus while an investigator at the NIH and at the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

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MLA

“Baruch Samuel Blumberg.” thisDay, thisday.info/people/baruch-samuel-blumberg/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.

APA

Baruch Samuel Blumberg. (n.d.). thisDay. Retrieved October 26, 2026, from https://thisday.info/people/baruch-samuel-blumberg/

Chicago

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