News media are invited to attend a tribute celebrating the life of Baruch “Barry” Blumberg, the first director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute and winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine. The tribute will be held at 4 p.m. PDT on Tuesday, June 21, in the Exploration Center at NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif.
Blumberg, who won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine for identifying the Hepatitis B virus and for making “discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases,” also was a Distinguished Scientist of the NASA Lunar Science Institute. Blumberg passed away April 5, 2011, while visiting Ames as a featured speaker at an international workshop. He was 85.
Among the speakers scheduled at the tribute celebration are former NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin, Ames Research Center Director S. Pete Worden and members of the Blumberg family. Also featured will be a video tribute and presentations by the Mars Institute, the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, and NASA Ames.
The tribute will be webcast at http://connect.arc.nasa.gov/blumberg
NASA’s Exploration Center is located at the main gate of NASA’s Ames Research Center. To reach NASA Ames, take U.S. Highway 101 to the Moffett Field, NASA Parkway exit and drive east on Moffett Boulevard towards the main gate and bear right into the parking lot. The Exploration Center is located in the large white dome.
