Baruch Blumberg was Senior Advisor for Biology to the Administrator of NASA. At the same time, Dr. Blumberg continued in his role as Director of the Astrobiology Institute. He was born in 1925 in New York City and educated at Union College (B.S.), Columbia University (M.D.), and Oxford University (Ph.D.). Dr. Blumberg received the 1976 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine (jointly with Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek) concerning the origin and spread of infectious diseases. His discovery of the hepatitis B vaccine and its widespread availability in 1982 resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of people infected with the disease worldwide. He had been on the staff of the Fox Chase Cancer Center since 1964 and had held the posts of professor of medicine and medical anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania from 1977 until his death. He was the Master of Balliol College from 1989 to 1994. He was elected President of the American Philosophical Society in 2005. Dr. Blumberg died suddenly on April 5, 2011.

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