Baruj Benacerraf was born on October 29, 1920, in
Caracas, Venezuela.
Benacerraf enrolled in the undergraduate studies at
Columbia University, obtaining a Bachelor of Science
Degree in 1942. Following Columbia, he enrolled in the
Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. A year later,
he was drafted into the U.S. Army. For a year in 1945,
Benacerraf interned at Queens General Hospital in New
York. In 1946, he was commissioned First Lieutenant
in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and sent to Germany;
he was discharged in 1947.
After the war, he was granted a Fellowship at the
Neurological Institute of Columbia University School
of Physicians and Surgeons. From 1950 to 1956, Benacerraf
moved with his family to Paris to take a position in
Bernard Halpern's laboratory at the Broussais Hospital.
In 1956, he returned to the United States as Assistant
Professor of Pathology at New York University School
of Medicine. By 1961, Benacerraf had advanced to Professor
of Pathology at New York University. In 1968, he moved
to Bethesda, Maryland to assume Directorship of the
Laboratory of Immunology of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Disease. Finally in 1970, Benacerraf
he accepted the Chair of Pathology at Harvard Medical
School.
He began studies of allergies in 1948, and discovered
the Ir (immune response) genes that govern transplant
rejection (1960s). In 1972 he demonstrated the existence
of T and B lymphocytes.
He shared the 1980 Nobel
Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the "discovery
of the Major histocompatibility complex genes which
encode cell surface molecules important for the immune
system's distinction between self and non-self."
Honorary Societies
· President of the American Association of Immunologists
(1973)
· President of the American Society for Experimental
Biology and medicine (1974)
· President of the International Union of Immunological
Societies (1980)
· American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1972)
· National Academy of Science, U.S.A. (1973)
· President of the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute
(1980)
The following press release from the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences describes Benacerraf's work:
The surface of all body cells is unique in every individual.
This unique character is detemined by genes that regulate
the formation of specific protein-carbohydrate complexes
(MHC) - the histocompatibility antigens, or H antigens
- found on the cell membrane. These complexes derive
their name (histo denotes a relationship to tissue)
from the fact they define the capacity of a body tissue
to exist in intimate contact with another body tissue.
H antigens determine the interaction among the multitude
of different cells responsible for the body's immunological
reactions. Knowledge of the genetic regulation of the
body's immune response makes it possible to explain
why different individuals have different capabilities
of defending themselves against infections and why a
cancer cell is eliminated in some cases and enabled
to grow into a tumor in others. The genes that are important
in this connection have been demonstrated primarily
in studies on mice and humans, but they are found in
all vertebrates. Knowledge of H antigens is of great
practical importance, for example, in tissue transplantation
(the transfer of tissues from one individual to another)
and for understanding the relationship between the genetic
constitution and disease. Thus, it has been shown that
certain H antigens predispose certain individuals to
certain diseases.
Baruj Benacerraf showed that genetic factors intimately
related to the genes that determine an individual's
unique constitution of H antigens actually regulate
the interaction among the various cells belonging to
the immunological system and are thereby important to
the strength of an immunological reaction.