Baruj Benacerraf Lasry (; October 29, 1920 – August 2, 2011) was a Venezuelan and 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.
Early life and education
Benacerraf was born in Caracas, Venezuela on October 29, 1920, to a Moroccan-Venezuelan Sephardic Jewish father, Abraham Benacerraf, and Algerian Jewish mother, Henrietta Lasry. His father was a textile merchant. His brother was philosopher Paul Benacerraf. He moved to Paris from Venezuela with his family in 1925. After going back to Venezuela, he emigrated to the U.S. in 1940. That same year, Benacerraf attended Lycée Français de New York, where he earned a Baccalauréat (an academic qualification French students achieve after high school and a diploma necessary to begin university studies).
In 1942, he earned his B.S. at Columbia University School of General Studies. He then went on to obtain his M.D. degree from the Medical College of Virginia, the only school to which he was accepted due to his Jewish background. Shortly after beginning medical school, Benacerraf became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
From his Nobel autobiography: "By that time, I had elected to study biology and medicine, instead of going into the family business, as my father would have wanted. I did not realize, however, that admission to Medical School was a formidable undertaking for someone with my ethnic and foreign background in the United States of 1942. In spite of an excellent academic record at Columbia, I was refused admission by the numerous medical schools I applied to and would have found it impossible to study medicine except for the kindness and support of George W. Bakeman, father of a close friend, who was then Assistant to the President of the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond. Learning of my difficulties, Mr. Bakeman arranged for me to be interviewed and considered for one of the two remaining places in the Freshman class."
At Columbia, Benacerraf got his start in immunology with Elvin A. Kabat in 1948. He spent two years in Kabat's laboratory working on experimental hypersensitivity mechanisms.
Other notable awards include:
- Rous-Whipple Award of the American Association of Pathologists 1985
- National Medal of Science 1990
- Gold-Headed Cane Award of the American Association for Investigative Pathology 1996
- Charles A. Dana Award for pioneering achievements in Health and Education 1996
Honorary degrees received
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Virginia Commonwealth University 1981
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, New York University 1981
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Yeshiva University 1982
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Columbia University 1985
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Adelphi University 1988
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Weizmann Institute of Sciences 1989
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Gustav Adolphus University 1992
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Harvard University 1992
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Sciences, Université de Bordeaux 1993
- Honorary Degree of Doctor of Medicine, University of Vienna 1995
Later years and death
His autobiography was published in 1998.
Benacerraf died on August 2, 2011, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts of pneumonia. Their daughter, Beryl, who died in late 2022, was a Harvard Medical School graduate who taught at Harvard and was a director at the Brigham and Women's Hospital, as well as the Massachusetts General Hospital.
See also
- List of Jewish Nobel laureates
- List of Venezuelan Nobel laureates
- List of Venezuelans