Everything about Albert Szent-gyorgyi totally explained
Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt (
September 16,
1893 –
October 22,
1986) was a
Hungarian physiologist who won the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in
1937. He is credited with detecting
vitamin C. He was also active in the Hungarian Resistance during
World War II and entered Hungarian politics after the war.
Life in Hungary
Szent-Györgyi was born in
Budapest,
Austria-Hungary. His father, Miklós Szent-Györgyi, was a landowner. His mother, Jozefin, was a daughter of
József Lenhossék and a sister of
Mihály Lenhossék; both of these men were Professors of
Anatomy at the
University of Budapest. Szent-Györgyi began his studies at the
Budapest Medical School, but soon became bored with classes and began research in his uncle's anatomy lab. His studies were interrupted in
1914 to serve as an army medic in
World War I. In
1916, disgusted with the war, Szent-Györgyi shot himself in the arm, claimed to be wounded from enemy fire, and was sent home on medical leave. He was then able to finish his medical education and receive his MD in
1917. He married Kornélia Demény, the daughter of the Hungarian Postmaster General that same year. She accompanied him to his next position at an army clinic in northern
Italy.
After the war, Szent-Györgyi began his research career in Pressburg (Hungarian: Pozsony, today:
Bratislava). When the city became part of
Czechoslovakia in January
1919, he left the town as did a portion of the Hungarian population. He switched universities several times over the next few years, finally ending up at the
University of Groningen, where his work focused on the
chemistry of
cellular respiration. This work landed him a position as a
Rockefeller Foundation fellow at
Cambridge University. He received his
PhD from Cambridge in
1927 for his work on isolating what he then called "hexuronic acid" from adrenal gland tissue.
He accepted a position at the
University of Szeged in
1931. There, Szent-Györgyi and his research fellow Joseph Svirbely found that "hexuronic acid" was actually
vitamin C (the L-enantiomer of
ascorbic acid) and noted its anti-
scorbutic activity. In some experiments they used
paprika as the source for their vitamin C. Also during this time, Szent-Györgyi continued his work on cellular respiration, identifying fumaric acid and other steps in what would become known as the
Krebs cycle.
In
1937, he received the
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "For his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion process with special reference to vitamin C and the
catalysis of
fumaric acid". In 1938, he began work on the
biophysics of
muscle movement. He found that muscles contain
actin, which when combined with the protein
myosin and the energy source
ATP, contract muscle fibers.
As
fascists gained control of politics in Hungary, Szent-Györgyi helped his
Jewish friends escape from the country. During
World War II, he joined the Hungarian
resistance movement. Although Hungary was allied with the
Axis Powers, the Hungarian prime minister
Miklós Kállay sent Szent-Györgyi to
Istanbul in 1944 under the guise of a scientific lecture to begin secret negotiations with the
Allies. The Germans learned of this plot, and
Adolf Hitler himself issued a warrant for the arrest of Szent-Györgyi. He escaped house arrest and spent
1944 to
1945 as a fugitive from the
Gestapo.
After the war, Szent-Györgyi was well-recognized as a public figure and there was some speculation that he might become President of Hungary, should the Soviets permit it. Szent-Györgyi established a lab at the
University of Budapest and became head of the biochemistry department there. He was elected as a member of Parliament and helped re-establish the Academy of Sciences. Dissatisfied with the
Communist rule of Hungary, he emigrated to the United States in
1947.
Move to the United States
In
1947, Szent-Györgyi established a lab at the
Marine Biological Laboratory in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts with financial support from Hungarian businessman Stephen Rath. However, Szent-Györgyi still faced funding difficulties for several years, due to his foreign status and former association with the government of a Communist nation. In 1948, he received a research position with the
National Institutes of Health (NIH) in
Bethesda, Maryland and began dividing his time between there and Woods Hole. In 1950, grants from the
Armour Meat Company and the
American Heart Association allowed him to establish the Institute for Muscle Research.
During the 1950s, Szent-Györgyi began using
electron microscopes to study muscles at the subunit level. He received the
Lasker Award in
1954. In
1955, he became a
naturalized citizen of the
United States. He became a member of the
National Academy of Sciences in 1956.
In the late 1950s, Szent-Györgyi developed a research interest in
cancer and developed ideas on applying the theories of
quantum physics to the biochemistry of cancer. The death of Rath, who had acted as the financial administrator of the Institute for Muscle Research, left Szent-Györgyi in a financial mess. Szent-Györgyi refused to submit government grants which required him to provide minute details on exactly how he intended to spend the research dollars and what he expected to find. After commenting on his financial hardships in a 1971 newspaper interview, attorney Franklin Salisbury contacted Szent-Györgyi and later helped him establish a private non-profit organization, the
National Foundation for Cancer Research. Late in life, Szent-Györgyi began to pursue
free radicals as a potential cause of cancer. He came to see cancer as being ultimately an electronic problem at the molecular level. In 1974, reflecting his interests in quantum physics, he proposed the term "
syntropy" replace the term "
negentropy". Ralph Moss, a protegé of his in the years he performed his cancer research, wrote a biography entitled: "Free Radical: Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and the Battle over Vitamin C", ISBN 0-913729-78-7, (1988), Paragon House Publishers, New York.
He died in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts on October 22, 1986.
Works Online
- "Teaching and the Expanding Knowledge"
, in Rampart Journal of Individualist Thought, Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 1965). 24-28. (Reprinted from Science, Vol. 146, No. 3649 [December4, 1965]. 1278-1279.)
Publications
On Oxidation, Fermentation, Vitamins, Health, and Disease (1940)
Bioenergetics (1957)
Introduction to a Submolecular Biology (1960)
The Crazy Ape (1970)
Electronic Biology and Cancer: A New Theory of Cancer (1976)
The living state (1972)
Bioelectronics: a study in cellular regulations, defense and cancerFurther Information
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