Albert Szent-Györgyi

Facts

Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrápolt

Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.

Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrápolt
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1937

Born: 16 September 1893, Budapest, Austria-Hungary (now Hungary)

Died: 22 October 1986, Woods Hole, MA, USA

Affiliation at the time of the award: Szeged University, Szeged, Hungary

Prize motivation: “for his discoveries in connection with the biological combustion processes, with special reference to vitamin C and the catalysis of fumaric acid”

Prize share: 1/1

Work

In our cells nutrients are broken down so that energy is released for the construction of cells. At the beginning of the 1930s, Albert Szent-Györgyi studied these metabolic processes and showed how their sequences are affected by catalysts—substances that facilitate reactions without being incorporated in the final products. Growth hormones, including fumaric acid, play a key role in transporting fluids as part of oxidation reactions in metabolism. Szent-Györgyi also pointed to the role of vitamin C, the substance he identified, in the processes.

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