About Baruj Benacerraf
Baruj Benacerraf Lasry 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. He began studying allergies in 1948, and discovered the Ir (immune response) genes that govern transplant rejection in the 1960s. While there they discovered techniques to study the clearance of particulate matter from the blood by the RES (reticuloendothelial system) and devised equations that govern this process in mammals. His discovery still holds true, and more has been discovered over the last century. Shortly after beginning medical school, Benacerraf became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
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