Posted
on September 16, 2014
- A member of a resistance movement!
- An anti-war protestor!
- Founder of a cancer research organization!
- A Nobel Prize Laureate!
- The guy who discovered Vitamin C!
Albert
Szent-Gyorgyi, born on this date in 1893 in Hungary, became a
physiologist. He worked on trying to understand the chemistry of
cellular respiration—the process by which cells “burn” food to
create ATP, which is the chemical that cells use for energy.
Along
the way, as Szent-Gyorgyi studied organic acids, he determined the
structure of L-ascorbic acid, which we commonly call Vitamin C.
Before
World War II, Szent-Gyorgyi helped his Jewish friends to escape the
country, and during the war he joined the Hungarian resistance
movement that agitated against the Nazis who had invaded their country.
When
he won a Nobel Prize for his work on cellular recreation and Vitamin
C, Szent-Gyorgyi offered all of his prize money to Finland, which
had recently been invaded by the Soviet Union.
His
science allowed Szent-Gyorgyi to leave post-war communist Hungary; he went to the U.S., and eventually became an American
citizen. While living in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, he started the
Institute for Muscle Research, and later he started a non-profit
organization called the National Foundation for Cancer Research.
In
the late 1960s, Szent-Gyorgyi protested the U.S. involvement in
Vietnam, and he urged other people to take a stand against the war as
well.
I like that Szent-Gyorgyi was involved in politics as well as science. He seems like the kind of principled man we need more of...
Celebrate Szent-Gyorgyi!
Also
on this date:
Plan
ahead:
Check
out my Pinterest boards for:
And
here are my Pinterest boards for
No comments:
Post a Comment