Albert Szent-Györgyi
Facts
Photo: Kováts. Nobel Foundation archive
Albert von Szent-Györgyi Nagyrápolt
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.
