Renato Dulbecco was a pioneer in the field of virology, the study of viruses. Dulbecco developed the plaque assay technique which allowed scientists to quantify the number of viral units in a laboratory culture, thus making possible most of the later major discoveries in virology. For his work in the study of viruses that could cause cancer in animals and humans, Dulbecco shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology with microbiologist David Baltimore and oncologist Howard Temin.

Dulbecco was born in Catanzaro, Italy, on February 22, 1914, the son of Leonardo Dulbecco, a civil engineer, and Maria Virdia Dulbecco. During World War I he lived with his mother and siblings in Turin and Cuneo after his father was called into military service. After the war, the family relocated to Imperia, where Dulbecco received his primary and secondary education. His interest in physics led him to build an electronic seismograph...