Peter Duesberg

Peter Duesberg
Duesberg in 2017
Born(1936-12-02)2 December 1936
Münster, Gau Westphalia-North, Germany
Died13 January 2026(2026-01-13) (aged 89)
Alma materUniversity of Frankfurt (PhD)
Known forOncogene research
AIDS denialism
Scientific career
FieldsMolecular biology
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
ThesisFraktionierungen von Proteinen – besonders Enzymen – mit Ionenaustauschern und Molekularsieben <vom Typ Sephadex> (1963)

Peter Heinz Hermann Duesberg (2 December 1936 – 13 January 2026) was a German-American molecular biologist and a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known for his early research into the genetic aspects of cancer. He was a proponent of AIDS denialism, the claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.

Duesberg received acclaim early in his career for research on oncogenes and cancer. With Peter K. Vogt, he reported in 1970 that a cancer-causing virus of birds had extra genetic material compared with non-cancer-causing viruses, hypothesizing that this material contributed to cancer.