Francis Peyton Rous was a physician-scientist at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (later the Rockefeller University) for over sixty years. In 1966, Rous won the Nobel Prize for his 1910 discovery that a virus can cause cancer tumors. His other contributions to scientific medicine include creating the first blood bank, determining major functions of the liver and gall bladder, and identifying factors that initiate and promote malignancy in normal cells.

Rous was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Charles Rous, a grain exporter, and Frances Wood, the daughter of a Texas judge. His father died when Rous was eleven, and his mother chose to stay in Baltimore. His sisters were professionally successful, one a musician, the other a painter.

Rous, whose interest in natural science was apparent at an early age, wrote a "flower of the month" column for the Baltimore Sun. He pursued his biological interests at Johns Hopkins...