Beryl Benacerraf, a renowned radiologist and professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, died October 1 of late-stage cancer. She was 73. Benacerraf is best known for discovering that congenital abnormalities such as Down syndrome could be diagnosed through prenatal ultrasound.
“Beryl was a true giant in the field of OB-GYN ultrasound who was known internationally as an expert in obstetrical imaging,” Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Chief of Ultrasound Mary Frates tells the Brigham Bulletin.
Benacerraf was born in 1949 to parents Baruj Benacerraf, an immunologist who would win the 1980 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, and Annette Benacerraf, whose uncle Jacques Monod shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in the same category, The New York Times reports. Living with undiagnosed dyslexia, Benacerraf had to develop special strategies to meet deadlines early in her career, but she found a talent for interpreting ultrasound images and picking out abnormalities, according to ...
