Nobel laureate Baruch S. Blumberg dies at 85

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Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg, who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the hepatitis B virus, has died. He was 85.

George Blumberg said Wednesday that his father collapsed Tuesday at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., where he was giving a speech.

Blumberg shared the 1976 Nobel Prize with D. Carleton Gajdusek for their ‘discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases,’ according to the citation from the prize announcement that year by the Karolinska Institutet.

Gajdusek, who died in 2008, shared the prize for his work on so-called ‘slow viruses.’

A full obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press