From Caracas to Stockholm. A Life in Medical Science

Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1998. First printing.

SIGNED BIOGRAPHY OF NOBEL LAUREATE--DISCOVERER OF MAJOR HISTOCOMPATIBILITY COMPLEX GENES.

14.5x23 cm hardcover, black paper covered boards, gilt title to spine, inscribed and signed on free front endpaper, "To Henry my friend when he gave his lecture. I am grateful Baruj Benacerraf", 280 pp, photographic plates, near fine in near fine jacket in protective mylar sleeve. The author was a Nobel Laureate. By the time Benacerraf received a Nobel prize in 1980 for his discovery of immune response genes, he had traveled a long way-literally on the road to success. He was born in Venezuela in 1920 to Sephardic Jewish parents from Algeria and Morocco. Benacerraf's childhood was spent primarily in Paris, until fear of war with Nazi Germany compelled his family to flee to Venezuela in 1939. Persuading his parents to send him to New York that same year, Benacerraf attended Columbia University, beginning a peripatetic existence that lasted until he landed in Boston in 1969, where he has held prominent positions at Harvard Medical School and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. In the meantime, his passion for medical research gained him numerous prestigious appointments and awards.