Albert Szent-Györgyi

Albert Szent-Györgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi at the time of his appointment to the National Institutes of Health
Born	(1893-09-16)September 16, 1893 Budapest, Austria-Hungary
Died	October 22, 1986(1986-10-22) (aged 93) Woods Hole, Massachusetts, United States
Residence	Austria-Hungary United States
Citizenship	Austro-Hungarian American
Fields	Physiology Biochemistry
Institutions	University of Szeged University of Cambridge
Alma mater	Semmelweis University, MD University of Cambridge, PhD
Doctoral advisor	Frederick Gowland Hopkins
Known for	vitamin C, discovering the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle
Influences	Hartog Jacob Hamburger Frederick Gowland
Notable awards	Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1937) Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research (1954)
Spouse	Kornélia Demény (1917–1938) Márta Borbíró (1941–1963) June Susan Wichterman (1965–1968) Marcia Houston (1975–1986)
Signature

Albert Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrápolt (/sɛntˈdʒɔːrdʒi/; Hungarian: nagyrápolti Szent-Györgyi Albert, pronounced [ˈnɒɟraːpolti ˈsɛnɟørɟi ˈɒlbɛrt]; September 16, 1893 – October 22, 1986) was a Hungarian American physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937.^[1] He is credited with discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle. He was also active in the Hungarian Resistance during World War II and entered Hungarian politics after the war.

Early life

Szent-Györgyi was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1893. His father, Miklós Szent-Györgyi, was a landowner, born in Marosvásárhely, Transylvania (today Târgu Mureş, Romania), a Calvinist, and could trace his ancestry back to 1608 when Sámuel, a Calvinist predicant, was ennobled.^[2][3] At the time of Szent-Györgyi's birth, being of the nobility was considered important and created opportunities that otherwise were not available.^[4] (Miklós Szent-Györgyi's parents were Imre Szent-Györgyi and Mária Csiky).^[5] His mother, Jozefina, a Roman Catholic, was a daughter of József Lenhossék and Anna Bossányi.^[6] Jozefina was a sister of Mihály Lenhossék; both of these men were Professors of Anatomy at the Eötvös Loránd University. His family included three generations of scientists.^[7] Music was important in the Lenhossék family. His mother Jozefina prepared to become an opera singer and auditioned for Gustav Mahler, then a conductor at the Budapest Opera. He advised her to marry instead, since her voice was not enough. Albert himself was good at the piano, while his brother Pál became a professional violinist.

Medical research

Szent-Györgyi in 1917 Italy

Szent-Györgyi began his studies at the Semmelweis University in 1911,^[7] then 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,^[8] claimed to be wounded from enemy fire, and was sent home on medical leave. He was then able to finish his medical education and received his MD in 1917.^[7] He married Kornélia Demény, the daughter of the Hungarian Postmaster General that same year.^[9]

After the war, Szent-Györgyi began his research career in Bratislava. 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 Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge in 1927 for work on isolating an organic acid, which he then called "hexuronic acid", from adrenal gland tissue.

He accepted a position at the University of Szeged in 1930.^[7] There, Szent-Györgyi and his research fellow Joseph Svirbely found that "hexuronic acid" was actually the thus far unidentified antiscorbutic factor, known as vitamin C. After Walter Norman Haworth had determined the structure of vitamin C, and in honour of its antiscorbutic properties, it was given the formal chemical name of L-ascorbic acid. 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 Szeged he also met Zoltán Bay, physicist, who became his personal friend and partner in research on matters of bio-physics.

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". Albert Szent-Györgyi offered all of his Nobel prize money to Finland in 1940. (The Hungarian Volunteers in the Winter War travelled to fight for the Finns after the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939.)

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.

In 1947, Szent-Györgyi established the Institute for Muscle Research 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 mechanics to the biochemistry (quantum biology) 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 Szent-Györgyi commented on his financial hardships in a 1971 newspaper interview, attorney Franklin Salisbury contacted him and later helped him establish a private nonprofit 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".^[10] Ralph Moss, a protégé 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. Aspects of this work are an important precursor to what is now dubbed redox signaling.

Statement on scientific discovery

Albert Szent-Györgyi, who realized that "a discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge,"^[11] divided scientists into two categories: the Apollonians and the Dionysians. He called scientific dissenters, who explored "the fringes of knowledge," Dionysians. He wrote, "In science the Apollonian tends to develop established lines to perfection, while the Dionysian rather relies on intuition and is more likely to open new, unexpected alleys for research...The future of mankind depends on the progress of science, and the progress of science depends on the support it can find. Support mostly takes the form of grants, and the present methods of distributing grants unduly favor the Apollonian."^[12]

Involvement in politics

As the government of Gyula Gömbös and the associated Hungarian National Defence Association 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 Cairo 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 from house arrest and spent 1944 to 1945 as a fugitive from the Gestapo.

After the war, Szent-Györgyi had become 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 laboratory at the University of Budapest and became head of the biochemistry department there. He was elected 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.

In 1967, Szent-Györgyi signed a letter declaring his intention to refuse to pay taxes as a means of protesting the U.S. war against Vietnam, and urging other people to take a similar stand.^[13]

Personal life

He married Cornelia Demény, daughter of the Hungarian Postmaster-General, in 1917.^[9] Their daughter, Cornelia Szent-Györgyi, was born in 1918. He and Cornelia divorced in 1941.

In 1941, he wed Marta Borbiro Miskolczy. She died of cancer in 1963.

Szent-Györgyi married June Susan Wichterman, the 25-year-old daughter of Woods Hole biologist Ralph Wichterman, in 1965. They were divorced in 1968.

He married his fourth wife, Marcia Houston, in 1975.^[14] They adopted a daughter, Lola von Szent-Györgyi.

Death and legacy

Szent-Györgyi died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts on October 22, 1986. He was honored with a Google Doodle September 16, 2011, 118 years after his birth.^[15] In 2004, nine interviews were conducted with family, colleagues, and others to create a Szent-Györgyi oral history collection.^[16]

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 [December 4, 1964]. 1278–1279.)

Publications

• On Oxidation, Fermentation, Vitamins, Health, and Disease (1940)
• Bioenergetics (1957)
• Introduction to a Submolecular Biology (1960)
• The Crazy Ape (1970)
• What next?! (1971)
• Electronic Biology and Cancer: A New Theory of Cancer (1976)
• The living state (1972)
• Bioelectronics: a study in cellular regulations, defense and cancer
• Lost in the Twentieth Century (Gandu) (1963)

References

Bibliography

• Ilona Újszászi (ed.): The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• László Dux: On the Basics of Biochemistry. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 13-23. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• János Wölfling: Life through the eyes of a chemist. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 24-34. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Gábor Tóth: From vitamins to peptides - Research topics in Szent-Györgyi's departments. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 35-57. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• István Hannus: The Analysis of Vitamin C in Szeged. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 58-76. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Mária Homoki-Nagy: Protection of the creations of the mind in the history of Hungarian law. Copyright and patent rights; primacy and ethics in science. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 77-93. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Miklós Gábor: Albert Szent-Györgyi's Studies on Flavones. Impact of the Discovery. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 94-122. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Tamás Vajda: Effects of the discovery of vitamin C on the paprika industry and the economy of the southern part of the Hungarian Great Plain. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 123-152. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Béla Pukánszky: The thoughts of Albert Szent-Györgyi on pedagogy. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 153-169. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• Csaba Jancsák: Albert Szent-Györgyi and the Student Union of the University of Szeged. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 170-193. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7
• József Pál: From the Unity of Life to the Coequality of the Forms of Consciousness. Worries of Albert Szent-Györgyi in Times of War. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 194-210. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7 http://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/6615/1/Sz_Gy-Unity_of_life.pdf
• Ildikó Tasiné Csúcs: The science-rescuing activity of Albert Szent-Györgyi and its roots in Hungary after 1945. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 211-227. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7 http://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/5744/1/Science_rescuing.pdf
• József Pál: About Albert Szent-Györgyi's Poems. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 228-237. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7 http://publicatio.bibl.u-szeged.hu/6611/1/A_Sz-Gy_poems.pdf
• Gábor Szabó: The passage of Szent-Györgyi to biophysics: a journey from the blur of the boundaries of disciplines through the instruments used for research with a stopover at the paprika centrifuge and arriving at the super lasers. In: The intellectual heritage of Albert Szent-Györgyi = Szegedi Egyetemi Tudástár 2.(Series editors.: László Dux, István Hannus, József Pál, Ilona Újszászi) Publishing Department-University of Szeged. 2014. 238-253. ISBN 978-963-306-347-7

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Albert Szent-Györgyi

• Biography of Albert Szent-Györgyi – from Nobel Lectures, Physiology or Medicine 1922–1941
• His biography at Hungary.hu
• BBC Interview, 1965
• A collection of digitized materials related to Szent-Györgyi and Linus Pauling's peace activism.
• The Albert Szent-Gyorgyi Papers – Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine

Hungarian or Hungarian-American Nobel Laureates
Chemistry	Zsigmondy Richárd (1925) Hevesy György (1943) Polányi János (1986) Oláh György (1994) Avram Hershko (2004)
Literature	Kertész Imre (2002)
Physics	Lénárd Fülöp (1905) Wigner Jenő (1963) Gábor Dénes (1971)
Physiology or Medicine	Bárány Róbert (1914) Szent-Györgyi Albert (1937) Békésy György (1961)
Economic Sciences	Harsányi János (1994)