Dr. Beryl Benacerraf, groundbreaking ultrasound researcher and physician, dies at 73

Dr. Beryl Benacerraf.

In an unusual way, Dr. Beryl Benacerraf seemed all but destined to become a towering presence in the field of ultrasound, though part of her journey to international renown was difficult.

While growing up, she wrestled with undiagnosed dyslexia, which made many school subjects challenging, though it later helped her excel in her life’s work.

“Pictures just speak to me,” she said in a 2015 oral history interview for Barnard College, her alma mater. “I can look at a picture and I can see the pattern. I can see things that nobody else can see.”

As for how dyslexia shaped that visionary talent, “after all these years I’ve come to the conclusion that it is a gift. I sure struggled with the other side of it, which is not being able to read properly, so now this gift is understandably the flip side of that whole problem.”

Dr. Benacerraf, who was honored in 2021 by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology as a “Giant in Obstetrics and Gynecology,” died Oct. 1 in her Cambridge home of cancer.

She was 73 and had held professorships at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive biology and radiology.

An entrepreneur in addition to her academic and medical work, Dr. Benacerraf was medical director and president of Diagnostic Ultrasound Associates in Brookline, which she founded in 1982.

The practice “has seen 350,000 unique patients” since its inception, said her husband, Dr. Peter Libby, a former chief of cardiovascular medicine at Brigham and Women’s.

“She was totally invested in her work,” said Libby, the Mallinckrodt professor of cardiovascular medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We would be on vacation and she would have her devices and would be trouble-shooting and consulting.”

As a researcher and the author of more than 300 scholarly articles, Dr. Benacerraf “opened the door for what is now known as genetic sonography,” which has “dramatically improved prenatal diagnosis and the characterization of fetal syndromes,” Brigham and Women’s said in June 2021, upon announcing that she had been chosen as a “Giant in Obstetrics and Gynecology.”

“She was just exceptional. She was a gifted person who people would turn to because they had such trust in her insight and judgment,” said Dr. Ross S. Berkowitz, director of gynecologic oncology at Brigham and Women’s and director of gynecology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. Benacerraf, he added, “was really a virtuoso.”

As a researcher, she noticed an association in the second trimester of pregnancy between Down syndrome and a thickening of the nuchal fold — the fold of skin at the back of the fetal neck. Her published research led to nuchal fold measurements being commonly recommended during pregnancy to determine the risk of Down syndrome.

In 1998, Dr. Benacerraf published “Ultrasound of Fetal Syndromes,” but not all of her findings were well accepted at first.

“People thought I was this crazy lady in private practice who thought that measuring the neck was related to Down syndrome,” she said in the Barnard interview. “So I was almost booed off the stage a couple of times.”

To the contrary, few physicians and researchers have entered the medical field with her family background.

Her father, Dr. Baruj Benacerraf, a former Harvard Medical School professor, shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work in immunology. He also formerly led the Sidney Farber Cancer Institute, which later became the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Jacques Monod, who was the uncle of Dr. Beryl Benacerraf’s mother, shared the 1965 Nobel in physiology or medicine for his findings in genetics.

Being part of such a family inevitably “led to a lot of self-esteem issues,” she said in the Barnard interview.

“But I also was very ambitious,” she said, adding with a laugh that this trait was encouraged at home.

“My father once told me that ‘whatever you end up doing, if you’re not the best in the world there’s no point in doing it.’ So I grew up with that kind of background.”

An only child, Beryl Benacerraf was born in New York City on April 29, 1949, the daughter of Baruj Benacerraf and Annette Dreyfus Benacerraf.

Her father’s work took the family to France for her early years. She was 7 when they returned to New York. French was her first language and English her second when she began attending the Brearley School, an all-girls private school in Manhattan.

To cope with challenges posed by her undiagnosed dyslexia, she became exceptionally organized for the rest of her life, finishing assignments the day they were assigned.

“Nothing ever piles up and I am never behind in my work, although I work very hard to achieve this peace of mind,” she said in an interview last year with Dr. Roberto Romero for the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology to highlight the “Giant” honor.

After graduating from Barnard, Dr. Benacerraf attended Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and then transferred to Harvard Medical School, from which she graduated in 1976.

While there, she met Libby, who was a resident. They married in 1975, five months after meeting. “We were really made for each other,” she said in the Barnard interview.

Dr. Benacerraf, who was ambidextrous, wanted to be a surgeon, but switched to additional studies in radiology for reasons including the pronounced gender discrimination she encountered in surgical training.

While pregnant with the first of her two children, she moved into ultrasound, rather than take a chance with radiation work during pregnancy.

She formerly served as president of the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine and was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine.

While she was president, “she promoted the development of a curriculum for training in ultrasound in obstetrics and gynecology, which has been endorsed or supported by all professional societies in the United States,” Romero wrote in his 2021 profile.

Her honors included the Ian Donald Gold Medal from the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award from the American Association for Women Radiologists, and the Lawrence A. Mack Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Radiologists in Ultrasound.

Despite such achievements, Dr. Benacerraf was “so, so humble,” said Berkowitz, the William H. Baker professor of gynecology at Harvard Medical School.

“She really acted surprised when you praised her,” he said. “She acted as if she was uncomfortable — ‘I don’t deserve it.’ "

A service will be announced for Dr. Benacerraf, who in addition to her husband leaves a son, Oliver Libby of New York City; a daughter, Brigitte Libby of Cambridge; and three grandchildren.

When the Globe profiled Dr. Benacerraf in 1987, physicians said she had elevated the making and reading of sonogram images of fetuses to a fine art.

And while her influence in the field was far-reaching, her personal connection to patients was just as extensive.

“What’s fun now is that I’ve seen so many women, I can’t go anywhere without running into a patient,” she told the Globe. “You know, if I go to a dinner party or to a restaurant or to the mall, they will come up to me and say, ‘You were right. I had a little boy.’ "