From Caracas to Stockholm: A Life in Medical Science - Hardcover

by Baruj Benacerraf (Author)

In this delightful and often humorous memoir, Nobel Laureate Dr. Baruj Benacerraf discusses the colorful history of his family and how they shaped his values and goals, his marriage to life-partner Annette, and his career in medical research. He reflects on his decision to specialize in immunology, recent advances in medicine, the challenges of being chief administrator of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the extraordinary experience of winning the Nobel Prize in medicine (with G. D. Snell) in 1980. Dr. Benacerraf offers valuable insights into the future of education in general and medical education in particular, both tempered with great compassion and hope for humanity.

Author Biography

Baruj Benacerraf (1920 - 2011) was a Venezuelan-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." In 1968, he became chief of the immunology laboratory at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland. From 1970 to 1991 he served as both professor of comparative pathology and chairman of the pathology department at Harvard University Medical School. He also was president (1980-91) of the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute (now the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) in Boston. Benacerraf was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (1973) and was awarded the National Medal of Science (1990).