Albert Szent-Györgyi

Albert Szent-Györgyi

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 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.

His father, Miklós Szent-Györgyi, was a landowner. His mother, Jozefin.
Szent-Györgyi began his studies at the Budapest Medical School and began research in his uncle’s anatomy lab. His studies were interrupted in 1914. to serve as an army medic in World War 1.
He 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 over the next few years, finally ending up at the University of Groningen, where his work focused on the chemistry of cellular respiration.
He received his PhD from Cambridge in 1927.

He accepted a position at the University of Szeged in 1931. There, Szent-Györgyi found vitamin C. In some experiments they used paprika as the source for their vitamin C.
In the legends he hated paprika, but one night his wife put a piece of paprika next to his dinner. He put it in the pocket of his cape, he started to work. Apperently that midnight he had the solution in his hand.

In 1937, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. After 1938, he began work on the biophysics of muscle movement.
During World War 2., he joined the Hungarian resistance movement.
He emigrated to the United States in 1942.

by: Nóra Kovács