Each has had a unique trajectory, described below. At the same time, these laureates share certain characteristics and experiences. Interestingly, all three were children of immigrants and thus had cross-cultural exposure since childhood. Two of the three undertook their university studies abroad and were conducting their research at top-level U.S. or British institutions when they received their awards. The Argentinean Houssay is a notable exception, since he conducted his research in his home country with a low budget, and is lauded for training generations of local students, designing efficient laboratory methods, and focusing on topics that had been sidelined by prominent global researchers.
Other common threads in these laureates’ experiences are the presence of key mentors in their lives, and the opportunity to work with extensive networks of established scholars. In addition, none of these scholars set out with an aim to make a groundbreaking discovery for humanity; rather, they all recognized that their success was the result of intense curiosity over a particular scientific issue, and their commitment to fully investigating it over the course of decades.
Contrary to the image of scientific geniuses as full-time researchers, isolated from distractions in their labs, all three of these Nobel Laureates greatly valued their roles as educators, and they left an indelible impact on generations of students. They believed that teaching – sharing and constructing ideas with students - was essential for constantly renewing their capacity for inquiry and improving their research. B.A. Houssay was responsible for training hundreds of Argentinean students and believed this to be an essential part of his legacy. Indeed, he paved the way for young scholars to conduct valuable research, including Leloir who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Baruj Benacerraf discovered his calling to teach early in his career, when he realized at NYU that “the training of young scientists was one of my most valuable and rewarding experiences.” He returned to Harvard Medical School later in life because he missed “the stimulating interaction with the eager, enthusiastic, and unprejudiced young minds of the students and fellows.”1 César Millstein taught at Cambridge University for decades and in his later years, was known for supporting the education of young scientists in developing countries.
Background
Bernardo Alberto Houssay was born in Buenos Aires to a family of French immigrants. His father was a barrister, and he was able to attend private schools and excel at his studies, graduating from the School of Pharmacy of the University of Buenos Aires at the age of 17. He also studied Medicine and founded the University of Buenos Aires’ Institute of Physiology in 1919, serving as its director until his opposition to the authoritarian government resulted in his removal in 1943.
Research and achievements
Houssay’s interest in endocrinology began in medical school and continued throughout his time at the Institute of Physiology, which was supported by the U.S. Rockefeller Foundation. He is known, however, for a unique style of resource-efficient laboratory research that made use of – and simultaneously, trained – a large number of monitores (student assistants). His research focused on the role of the anterior hypophysis (pituitary gland) in the metabolism of sugar, thus discovering its importance for the onset of diabetes. In 1947, Houssay received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this discovery, which overturned previous notions that diabetes only stemmed from the pancreas. He was the first Latin American to receive a Nobel in science, and although he was offered positions in various countries, he was dedicated to remaining in Argentina and contributed immensely to Argentinean physiology. He held honorary degrees at 25 universities and remained active at the institution he founded in the 1940s, the Instituto de Medicina y Biología Experimental, as well as at the University of Buenos Aires (where he was reinstated by a new government in 1955) until the late 1960s.
Background
Baruj Benacerraf was born in Caracas, the son of immigrants from Spanish Morocco (father) and French Algeria (mother). His father was a highly successful textile merchant, and at an early age, the family moved to Paris where he was raised until the family was forced to return to Venezuela in 1939 due to the war. The family immediately relocated to New York, where Benacerraf completed a Bachelor of Science at Columbia University. Due to his ethnic background, he faced difficulties entering medical school despite his excellent academic record. Eventually, he was admitted to the Medical College of Virginia in 1942 and drafted into the U.S. Army in 1943, when he also became a naturalized U.S. citizen. During his army service, he was assigned to head a medical unit in France, practicing community medicine, until 1947.
Research and achievements
Upon his return to the U.S., Benacerraf began pursuing his research interests in immunology and hypersensitivity, which stemmed from his own experience suffering from bronchial asthma as a child. After a fellowship at the Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons and a six-year stint at the Broussais Hospital laboratory in Paris, Benacerraf accepted a position at New York University’s School of Medicine in 1956, where he could finally set up his own laboratory and deepen his research into immunogenetics. At NYU, Benacerraf worked with numerous immunologists and discovered immune response (Ir) genes that affect the functioning of the immune system. This discovery led to being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1980, after becoming Director of the Laboratory of Immunology of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in 1968, and Chair of Pathology at Harvard Medical School in 1970.
Benacerraf donated his Nobel Prize money to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he served as President for numerous years. His research discoveries have contributed to the understanding of various cancers and autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis and arthritis.
Background
César Milstein was born in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, the son of a salesman and a schoolteacher, both Jewish immigrants from working-class backgrounds. As a child, he preferred exploring outdoors to schoolwork, but became interested in science and completed a BSc and PhD in Chemistry at the University of Buenos Aires. Subsequently, in 1958, he won a British Council scholarship to study another PhD at the University of Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry. During these early years, Milstein conducted research on enzymes together with top scientists – in Buenos Aires, with an enzymologist referred to him by Luis Leloir, Argentina’s Nobel Prize winner in Chemistry, and at Cambridge, with Fred Sanger, another Nobel Prize winner for research on insulin. Milstein returned to Argentina to take a position at the National Microbiological Institute, but had to return to Cambridge as a result of the persecution of liberal academics by the Argentinean government.
Research and achievements
At Cambridge, Milstein began working at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 1963, and his mentor Sanger steered his research towards immunology. In 1975, Milstein and his colleague Georges Kohler developed a technique for producing unlimited numbers of monoclonal antibodies with predetermined traits, which can be used to make medications. For this work, Milstein, Kohler, and Niels Jerne won the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine. Since then, monoclonal antibodies have become one of the cornerstones of the biotechnology industry. They have been developed to target specific cancer cells, and to treat other ailments such as rheumatoid arthritis. Although Milstein collaborated with biotechnology companies developing medications, he continued to pursue his primary research interest: how each individual’s immune system can produce millions of different antibodies.
Milstein remained at Cambridge’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology until his retirement in 1995. According to a tribute written by Dr. David Secher, a Cambridge colleague of Milstein, he was “one of the best loved and most important scientists of the 20th century”, and “a scientific father to a dynasty of molecular biologists, now scattered throughout the world.” 2 •
ENDNOTES AND SOURCES
1. Cited in Wilhelm Odelberg (Ed.), Les Prix Nobel, The Nobel Prizes 1980, Nobel Foundation, Stockholm, 1981, at Baruj Benacerraf - Biographical, https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1980/benacerraf/biographical/
2. David Secher, Cesar Milstein 1927-2002, University of Cambridge News (reproduced by permission from The Independent, Obituaries, 27 March 2002), at https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cesar-milstein-1927-2002
B. A. Houssay, History of Science in Latin America and the Carribbean, at: https://mypages.unh.edu/hoslac/book/b-houssay
Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1942-1962, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1964, in Bernardo Houssay – Biographical, at: www.nobelprize.org
Baruj Benacerraf, History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean, at: https://mypages.unh.edu/hoslac/book/baruj-benacceraf-venezuelan-physiologist
Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1980, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1981, in Baruj Benacerraf – Biographical. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1980/benacerraf/biographical/>
Cesar Milstein, History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean, at:: https://mypages.unh.edu/hoslac/book/dr-cesar-milstein
Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1984, Editor Wilhelm Odelberg, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1985
César Milstein – Biographical. NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/1984/milstein/biographical/
David Secher, Cesar Milstein 1927-2002, University of Cambridge News (reproduced by permission from The Independent, Obituaries, 27 March 2002), at https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cesar-milstein-1927-2002
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