Albert Szent-Györgyi

It’s the birthday of Albert Szent-Györgyi, who was born in 1893 in Budapest, Hungary. Szent-Györgyi studied medicine and then, after World War I, became a researcher focusing on the chemical basis of metabolism. His discoveries, notably the role of vitamin C in respiration, earned him the 1937 medicine Nobel. They also led him to take an interest in the physical basis of biological processes. He discovered that muscles contain actin polymers that cause muscle fibers to contract when combined with myosin and with ATP as an energy source. Szent-Györgyi spent World War II as a member of the Hungarian resistance opposed to the country’s ally, Nazi Germany. He helped his Jewish friends escape Hungary, and he participated in a failed plot to have Hungary join the Allies. Szent-Györgyi remained in Hungary until 1947, when he emigrated to the US. There, he was among the first to use electron microscopy to study biological samples. “Discovery,” he once said, “consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.”

Date in History: 16 September 1893