Альберт Сент-Дьердьи: Нобель сыйлықты биохимик ғалымы

Hungarian biochemist (1893–1986), Nobel Prize winner

Albert Imre Szent Györgyi de Nagyrápolt (nagyrápolti Szent Györgyi Albert Imre; September 16, 1893 – October 22, 1986) was a Hungarian biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with first isolating vitamin C and discovering many of the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle and the molecular basis of muscle contraction. He was also active in the Hungarian Resistance during World War II, and entered Hungarian politics after the war.

Szent Györgyi was born in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary 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. At the time of Szent Györgyi's birth, being of the nobility was considered important and created opportunities that otherwise were not available. (Miklós Szent Györgyi's parents were Imre Szent Györgyi and Mária Csiky). His mother, Jozefina, a Roman Catholic, was a daughter of József Lenhossék and Anna Bossányi. 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. 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.

Szent Györgyi began his studies at the Semmelweis University in 1911, 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. where he was a student at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. His research involved isolating an organic acid, which he then called "hexuronic acid", from adrenal gland tissue. 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. (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 1946, Albert received the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh. 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 at Woods Hole. Szent Györgyi conducted research at the MBL from 1947 to 1986 year round. There, he found that whole muscle tissue retained its contractility almost indefinitely if stored cold in a fifty percent glycerol solution, thus eliminating the need to have fresh muscle on hand. 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 was elected a Member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in 1956. In 1941, 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". 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. Aspects of this work are an important precursor to what is now dubbed redox signaling.

Albert Szent Györgyi, who realized that "a discovery must be, by definition, at variance with existing knowledge," divided scientists into two categories: the Apollonians and the Dionysians. He called Dionysians the scientific dissenters who explore "the fringes of knowledge". 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." He was one of the signatories of the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt a Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

"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.)

He married Cornelia Demény (1898 1981), daughter of the Hungarian Postmaster General, in 1917. Their daughter, Cornelia Szent Györgyi, was born in 1918 and died in 1969. 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. They adopted a daughter, Lola von Szent Györgyi.

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