Szent-Györgyi, Albert

Albert Szent-Györgyi.

(credit: Boyer—H. Roger-Viollet)

(born Sept. 16, 1893, Budapest, Hung., Austria-Hungary—died Oct. 22, 1986, Woods Hole, Mass., U.S.) Hungarian-born U.S. biochemist. His discoveries about the roles played by certain organic compounds, especially vitamin C, in the oxidation (see oxidation-reduction) of nutrients by cells brought him a 1937 Nobel Prize. He found and isolated an organic reducing agent from plant juices and adrenal gland extracts and showed it was identical to vitamin C. His work on intermediates in the cell laid the foundation for the elucidation of the tricarboxylic acid cycle by Hans Adolf Krebs. In later years he worked on the biochemistry of muscular action (demonstrating the role of ATP) and of cell division.

Szent-Györgyi, Albert (von Nagyrapolt) (1898–1986) biochemist; born in Budapest, Hungary. Trained as an anatomist, he worked at several European institutions, publishing studies of bacteriology and quantum mechanics before concentrating on biochemistry. He won the 1937 Nobel Prize in physiology for his discovery of the oxidation-preventing action of vitamin C, which he termed ascorbic acid. He also discovered the controversial vitamin P, plant pigments that reduce capillary fragility and protect against radiation damage. Harassed because of his anti-Nazi activities, he was granted protective citizenship at the Swedish embassy in Hungary. He refused the presidency of Hungary, emigrating to the U.S.A. in 1947 because of his dislike of postwar Soviet dominance of his native country. He joined the Marine Biology Laboratories at Woods Hole, Mass. (1947–86), and founded its Institute for Muscle Research (1947). There he continued research on heart muscle based on his 1940 discovery of the contractile muscle protein, actomyosin. He concurrently served the National Foundation for Cancer Research (1980–86). He authored several books and over 200 scientific papers, and was actively opposed to the Vietnam war.