Baruj Benacerraf

Baruj Benacerraf married Annette Dreyfus in 1943 and the couple had a daughter named Beryl Rica Benacerraf. His wife, Annette, died in June 2011.

He died of pneumonia on 2 August 2011, at Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, at the age of 90.

Baruj Benacerraf was born on 29 October 1920, at Caracas, Venezuela. His father was a business man from Spanish Morocco and mother was from French Algeria. His brother, Paul Joseph Salomon Benacerraf, grew up to become a renowned philosopher.

In 1925, he along with his family shifted to Paris from Venezuela. He completed his primary and secondary school education in French.

With the onset of World War II, in 1939, he and his family shifted back to Venezuela. In 1940, he moved to New York, USA to pursue higher studies.

He enrolled at the Columbia University in the School of General Studies and graduated with Bachelors degree in Science in 1942. Later he successfully completed his degree in Doctor of Medicine from the Medical College of Virginia.

After completing his graduation, Baruj Benacerraf pursued his medical internship at the Queens General Hospital in New York City, after which he served in the US Army from 1946 to 1948.

After his discharge from military service he joined the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons as researcher. During this phase, he got the opportunity to gain an understanding of immunochemistry and basic immunology.

In 1949, he along with his wife and daughter shifted to Paris and he subsequently accepted a position in Bernard Halpern's laboratory at the Broussais Hospital. He carried out research to study reticuloendothelial function with regards to immunity and developed methods to study the emptying of particulate matter from blood by RES.

In 1956 he returned to USA and focused on immune complex diseases, cellular hypersensitivity, anaphylactic hypersensitivity, structure of antibodies and tumor specific immunity. He worked in collaboration with renowned scientists which include immunologists Robert McCluskey, Philip Gell, Lloyd J. Old, Zoltan Ovary and biologist Gerald Edelman.

During this period he also managed a New York bank—the Colonial Trust Company that he had inherited from his father. However, he retired from his position at the bank so that he could devote his time to science.

Baruj Benacerraf was an immunologist who researched on the working of the human immune system. His most noted work was the discovery of genes that control immune responses and the part played by genes in autoimmune diseases.