Albert Szent-Györgyi in Szeged, Hungary

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Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt was born on September 16, 1893. He won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937 for his discoveries about vitamin C and cellular respiration. Szent-Györgyi also worked in Hungarian politics after World War II. Szent-Györgyi started studying at Semmelweis University in 1911. He was an army medic during World War I from 1914 to 1916. After being sent home on medical leave, he finished his medical education and received his MD in 1917. Szent-Györgyi married Kornélia Demény, the daughter of the Hungarian Postmaster General, that same year. After the war, Szent-Györgyi began his research career in Bratislava. He switched universities several times before ending up at the University of Groningen, where he focused on cellular respiration chemistry. This work landed him a position as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow at Cambridge University. Szent-Györgyi received his PhD from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge in 1927 for isolating an organic acid from adrenal gland tissue. He accepted a position at the University of Szeged in 1930. There, Szent-Györgyi and Joseph Svirbely found that "hexuronic acid" was actually vitamin C. After Walter Norman Haworth determined the structure of vitamin C, it was given the formal chemical name L-ascorbic acid. Szent-Györgyi continued his work on cellular respiration, identifying fumaric acid and other steps in the Krebs cycle. In 1937, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries about 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. Szent-Györgyi began work on the biophysics of muscle movement in 1938. He found that muscles contain actin, which when combined with myosin and ATP, contract muscle fibers. In 1947, Szent-Györgyi established the Institute for Muscle Research at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. Grants from Armour Meat Company and the American Heart Association allowed him to establish the institute in 1950. During the 1950s, Szent-Györgyi used electron microscopes to study muscles at the subunit level. Szent-Györgyi received the Lasker Award in 1954. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1955 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1956. In the late 1950s, Szent-Györgyi developed research interests in cancer and applied theories of quantum mechanics to its biochemistry. The death of financial administrator Rath left Szent-Györgyi in a financial mess. He refused to submit government grants requiring minute details on how he intended to spend research dollars. Attorney Franklin Salisbury contacted Szent-Györgyi after he commented on his financial hardships in a 1971 newspaper interview, and helped him establish the National Foundation for Cancer Research. Late in life, Szent-Györgyi pursued free radicals as a potential cause of cancer. He came to see cancer as an electronic problem at the molecular level. In 1974, reflecting his interests in quantum physics, he proposed replacing the term "negentropy" with "syntropy". Ralph Moss wrote a biography about Szent-Györgyi's work on vitamin C and cancer research entitled: "Free Radical: Albert Szent-Györgyi and the Battle over Vitamin C", ISBN 0-913729-78-7, (1988), Paragon House Publishers, New York.