EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -The simultaneous discovery in 1970 of reverse transcriptase in virions of retroviruses by Howard Temin and David Baltimore was perhaps the most dramatic scientific moment of the second half of the 20th century.

Detailed explanation-2: -After Renato Dulbecco discovered that tumor viruses operate by incorporating their DNA into the DNA of host cells, Howard Temin and David Baltimore–independently of one another–discovered that viruses with genomes consisting of RNA can also be inserted into host cells’ DNA.

Detailed explanation-3: -2.3. Reverse transcriptases (RTs) are RNA dependent DNA pols initially isolated from retroviruses.

Detailed explanation-4: -History. 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.

Detailed explanation-5: -The first human retroviruses (HTLV-I) was first reported by Robert C. Gallo and coworkers in 1980 and reconfirmed by Yorio Hinuma and coworkers in 1981. These discoveries were in turn dependent on the previous discovery by Gallo and coworkers in 1976 of interleukin 2 or T-cell growth factor as it was called then.