Baruj Benacerraf, American Immunologist

Baruj Benacerraf (October 29, 1920 - August 2, 2011) was a Venezuelan-born American immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of the major histocompatibility complex genes which encode cell surface protein molecules important for the immune system's distinction between self and non-self'. His colleagues and shared recipients were Jean Dausset and George Davis Snell. Benacerraf was born in Venezuela in 1920 to Sephardic Jewish parents of Moroccan descent. His brother is well-known philosopher Paul Benacerraf. After his medical internship and US Army service (1945-48), he became a researcher at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (1948-50). He performed research in Paris (1950-56), relocated to New York University (1956-68), moved to the National Institutes of Health (1968-70), then joined Harvard University medical school (1970-91) where he became the Fabyan Professor of comparative Pathology, concurrently serving the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston (1980). He began studies of allergies in 1948, and discovered the Ir (immune response) genes that govern transplant rejection. Counting different editions, he is an author of over 300 books and articles. He died in 2011 at the age of 90

Restrictions Only for Ireland and United Kingdom

Immunologist Laureate Nobelist Pathologist Recipient Sephardic Venezuelan

Features In These Collections

> Contributors > PHR