Women in Chemistry: Ruth Benesch

Ruth Erica Benesch

Ruth Erica Benesch discovered just how a deep breath refreshes your whole body. Hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells, carries oxygen from your lungs to all the cells in your body. Benesch and her husband, Reinhold, made a key discovery that helped explain how hemoglobin goes about releasing its oxygen cargo throughout the body.

Hemoglobin molecules function like oxygen delivery trucks. Every red blood cell contains hemoglobin molecules, and as the blood passes through the lungs each hemoglobin molecule picks up one oxygen molecule. The hemoglobin molecules then deliver their oxygen molecules, one at a time, via the bloodstream to all the cells throughout the body as needed.

Courtesy Department of Biochemistry, Columbia University.

The Benesches discovered how the hemoglobin "knows" when a cell needs oxygen. When cells metabolize sugars with oxygen, they produce carbon dioxide (CO₂) as a byproduct. A buildup of carbon dioxide functions a "sign" to a hemoglobin molecule that a cell has been using up oxygen by metabolizing sugars and needs more oxygen. By releasing oxygen wherever carbon dioxide starts to build up in the body, hemoglobin delivers oxygen to where it is needed most.

About Her Life
Ruth Erica Benesch (1925–2000) was born Ruth Erica Leroi in Paris, France. When she was just six days old, her family moved to Berlin, Germany. In 1939 she and her sister escaped the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany by fleeing to England as part of the Kindertransport program, which relocated 10,000 Jewish children from Central Europe to the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, Benesch’s mother remained in Germany but survived because she was hidden by a non-Jewish friend. In England Ruth finished high school and attended college at London University. She also supported herself by working in a rubber factory, where she met Reinhold Benesch, who was also working there. She graduated in 1946 and married Reinhold the same year.

The Benesches moved to the United States, where they both entered graduate school at Northwestern University, just outside Chicago. Ruth graduated with her Ph.D. in 1951, Reinhold having earned his a year earlier. Together they had three children, Andrew, Susan, and Nina. Ruth and Reinhold became a scientific team, always collaborating on their biochemical research. Eventually they became professors at Columbia University in New York City, where they spent most of their careers researching hemoglobin.

The Benesches also studied sickle-cell anemia, a disease caused by abnormal hemoglobin. After Reinhold died in 1986, Ruth continued working, studying compounds that she hoped might be able to act like hemoglobin in the body. Compounds like this could be useful for treating people with diseases caused by abnormal hemoglobin, like sickle-cell anemia for example. She continued this work until her retirement 10 years later. Ruth Benesch died at her home in New York City in 2000.

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