Benedita Rocha was an extraordinary person and an outstanding researcher. Born in 1949, she graduated from the University of Lisbon Medical School in 1972 and worked as medical doctor in Portugal for some years. During that period, Benedita dealt with the frustration of having limited resources to understand and treat diseases, and decided that research would give her better chances to make a difference. And actually, it did. In the late ‘70s, Benedita left Portugal to do a PhD with Maria de Sousa in Glasgow and started her brilliant journey as an immunology researcher. After a short period in the Memorial-Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, and some years as immunology professor at the University of Lisbon Medical School in Portugal, the final home of her research was France, in particular, the Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital in Paris, where she worked as a CNRS researcher for approximately 30 years.
With an insightful and restless mind, Benedita created innovative experimental strategies to address complex problems, and the impact of her work on the immunology field is vast. Her research has made vital contributions for understanding the homeostasis of lymphocyte populations, demonstrating, for instance, the T-cell dependance of extra-thymic signals for their flight for survival in the periphery. She also did seminal discoveries in what concerns the induction of lymphocyte tolerance outside the thymus, T-cell differentiation in the thymus and in the gut, the properties of naïve and memory T cells, and the generation of productive memory T-cell responses. In the last decade of her career, her research explored the different effector roles played by the CD8 T-cells during the immune response, unveiling complex details of the primary and secondary responses using not only the mouse model, but looking also into cells responding to infection in humans, in particular, viral infections, such as HIV.
Of note, Benedita’s work and career has been recognized with several distinctions and awards, namely the Pfizer award (1983), the Gulbenkian award for science (1987), the CNRS Silver Medal (2007), the insignia of Knight from the Legion of Honour by the French government (2008), and the Scientific Merit Medal by the Portuguese Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education (2021).
Endowed with a unique ability to observe the world from an unusual perspective, Benedita was a unique mentor, with a transcendent intelligence, who inspired generations through science, art and humor. Those who worked with her will never forget the unexpected observations, the sharp critical thinking, the insightful stories. Her irreverence was disarming. Her laughter will always fill the silence. Her legacy is eternal.
Benedita passed away in the early days of October 2021. It would have been always too soon for her to go.
Marta Monteiro
(Photo credits: Frédéric Christophorides)
it was always exciting to hear Professor Rocha give presentations at immunology conferences. Her insights provided enthusiasm for us to try to unravel the emerging problems in immunology. She is a great loss to the field but an enduring voice.