Baruj Benacerraf moved to Paris from Venezuela with his family in 1925.
13 Facts About Baruj Benacerraf
2.
That same year, Baruj Benacerraf attended Lycee Francais de New York, where he earned a Baccalaureat.
3.
Shortly after beginning medical school, Baruj Benacerraf became a naturalized US citizen.
4.
Baruj Benacerraf began studying allergies in 1948, and discovered the Ir genes that govern transplant rejection in the 1960s.
5.
At Columbia, Benacerraf got his start in immunology with Elvin A Kabat in 1948.
6.
Baruj Benacerraf spent two years in Kabat's laboratory working on experimental hypersensitivity mechanisms.
7.
Baruj Benacerraf then moved to Paris because of family issues and accepted a position in Bernard Halpern's laboratory at the Hopital Broussais.
8.
Baruj Benacerraf was recruited to the faculty of New York University, established his own laboratory, and returned to his studies on hypersensitivity.
9.
In New York, Baruj Benacerraf worked with several other immunologists on different fields of hypersensitivity.
10.
Baruj Benacerraf noticed that if antigens were injected into animals with a similar heredity, two groups emerged: responders and non-responders.
11.
Baruj Benacerraf then conducted further study and found that the dominant autosomal genes, termed the immune response genes, determined the response to certain antigens.
12.
Baruj Benacerraf was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1971.
13.
Baruj Benacerraf died on August 2,2011, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts of pneumonia.