Center for Humanities History of Science Meetings

Fifty Years of   REVERSE TRANSCRIPTASE

Fifty Years of Reverse Transcriptase

The discovery of Reverse Transcriptase 50 years ago was one of the most dramatic findings of the 20th century, for both scientific and non-scientific reasons. The discovery provided instant proof for the previously ridiculed hypothesis that retroviruses replicate through a DNA intermediate, amending a widely held dogma of genetic information flow, and establishing a new paradigm of gene transfer. The unique properties of retroviruses also laid the essential technical and conceptual groundwork for defining discoveries to follow – the molecular basis of cancer, the causes of important animal and human diseases, including T cell lymphoma and AIDS, as well as the rapid development of antiretroviral drugs in response to the HIV pandemic.

This 2022 Cold Spring Harbor biohistory meeting addressed Fifty Years of Reverse Transcriptase. The goal of this meeting was to bring together the researchers involved in these seminal discoveries, to exchange historical information and insights into what made them possible, and to provide an historical archive of a major turning point in the remarkable story of 20th century biological science.

Meeting Topics

  • The Discovery of Reverse Transcriptase
  • Mechanisms of Reverse Transcription, Other Viruses
  • RT as Tool and Target
  • TWIV This Week in Virology
  • RT and Evolution: Other Retroelements and Normal Roles
  • RT, Retroviruses, and Disease
  • RT and Evolution: Endogenous Retroviruses I
  • RT and Evolution: Endogenous Retroviruses II

See the Meeting Yourself

This unique meeting covering the history of reverse transcriptase to the latest developments has been preserved and is available for your immediate viewing. PROGRAM contains session topics and links to the full length video and slides of talks presented. PROFILES contains biographies of the people in the field who presented. PARTICIPANTS lists those who attended and their institutions. PHOTOS contain hundreds of candid photos taken during the meeting.

What is Reverse Transcriptase

A reverse transcriptase (RT) is an enzyme used to generate complementary DNA (cDNA) from an RNA template, a process termed reverse transcription. Reverse transcriptases are used by viruses such as HIV and hepatitis B to replicate their genomes, by retrotransposon mobile genetic elements to proliferate within the host genome, and by eukaryotic cells to extend the telomeres at the ends of their linear chromosomes. Contrary to a widely held belief, the process does not violate the flows of genetic information as described by the classical central dogma, as transfers of information from RNA to DNA are explicitly held possible.

Retroviral RT has three sequential biochemical activities: RNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity, ribonuclease H (RNase H), and DNA-dependent DNA polymerase activity. Collectively, these activities enable the enzyme to convert single-stranded RNA into double-stranded cDNA. In retroviruses and retrotransposons, this cDNA can then integrate into the host genome, from which new RNA copies can be made via host-cell transcription. The same sequence of reactions is widely used in the laboratory to convert RNA to DNA for use in molecular cloning, RNA sequencing, polymerase chain reaction (PCR), or genome analysis.

Reverse transcriptases were discovered by Howard Temin at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in Rous sarcoma virions and independently isolated by David Baltimore in 1970 at MIT from two RNA tumour viruses: murine leukemia virus and again Rous sarcoma virus. For their achievements, they shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Renato Dulbecco.

Previous History of Science Meetings

This meeting is the eleventh in a series organized by the CSHL Meeting and Courses Program together with CSHL Center for Humanities Studies of Modern Biology: Culture, History, Art, and Humanity.

We have invited speakers who made many of the seminal discoveries that began the field, as well as those who are working in the field now. We also invite historians who have examined the scientific and societal context of the field. Like the previous meetings in the series, this meeting will provide an excellent opportunity to look in depth at a topic and to share the stories that are often missing from academic accounts.

Meetings in the series include:

Organizers

  • John Coffin, Tufts University
  • Steve Goff, Columbia University
  • Anna-Maria Skalka, Fox Chase Cancer Center
  • Steve Hughs, National Cancer Institute
  • Hung Fan, University of California Irvine

Speakers

  • Irina R. Arkhipova, Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
  • Eddy Arnold, Rutgers University, Piscataway, New Jersey
  • David Baltimore, Scripps Research, La Jolla, California
  • Karen Beemon, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
  • J. Michael Bishop, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California
  • Jef D. Boeke, NYU Langone Health, New York, New York
  • John M. Coffin, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Kathleen Collins, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California
  • Ronald Desrosiers, University of Miami, Miami, Florida
  • Jaquelin Dudley, University of Texas at Austin
  • Hung Fan, University of California, Irvine
  • Robert C. Gallo, University of Maryland, School of Medicine,Baltimore, Maryland; Global Virus Network (GVN), Baltimore, Maryland
  • Stephen P. Goff, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, New York, New York
  • Alex Greenwood, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin, Germany; Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • Thierry Heidmann, Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France
  • Thomas Hohn, Friedrich Miescher-Institut, Basel, Switzerland
  • Stephen H. Hughes, NCI-Frederick, Frederick, Maryland
  • John M. Coffin, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts
  • Welkin E. Johnson, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
  • Christine A. Kozak, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland
  • Alan M. Lambowitz, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas
  • Henry Levin, NICHD, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  • Jeffrey D. Lifson, Frederick National Laboratory, Frederick, Maryland
  • Maxine L. Linial, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington.
  • Jeremy Luban, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester
  • Tom Maniatis, Columbia University, New York, New York
  • Malcolm Martin, NIAID, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland
  • William S. Mason, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Jeffery F. Miller, University of California, Los Angeles
  • Hiroaki Mitsuya, National Center for Global Health & Medicine Research Institute, Tokyo, Japan; National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
  • Karin Moelling, University Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland; Max Planck-Institute Molecular Genetics, Berlin, Germany
  • John V. Moran, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Benjamin G. Neel, NYU Langone Health, New York, New York
  • Vincent Racaniello, Columbia University, New York
  • Alan Rein, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland
  • Douglas Richman, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California
  • John M. Coffin, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts
  • Stefan G. Sarafianos, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia
  • John M. Sedivy, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island
  • Anna Marie Skalka, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Bruce Stillman, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
  • Jonathan Stoye, Francis Crick Institute, London, United Kingdom
  • John Taylor, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
  • Alice Telesnitsky, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
  • Sarah Temin, unaffiliated
  • Harold Varmus, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York
  • Peter K. Vogt, Scripps Research, La Jolla, California
  • Robert A. Weinberg, Whitehead Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Robin A. Weiss, University College London, London, United Kingdom
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