Baruch Blumberg won the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discoveries concerning new mechanisms of the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases, including hepatitis B virus.
Blumberg identified the Australia antigen in the blood of an Aboriginal Australian patient in the 1960s. The antigen was later recognized as part of hepatitis B virus. His work helped establish how the virus spreads and how chronic infection can contribute to cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Blumberg shared the prize with D. Carleton Gajdusek, who studied kuru and other slow-acting infectious diseases. Blumberg’s discovery also enabled development of a diagnostic blood test and contributed to the hepatitis B vaccine. Hepatitis B is distinct from hepatitis C, another major cause of viral liver disease discovered through later research.