Albert Szent-Györgyi was a controversial, charismatic, and intuitive scientist whose career took many paths in the course of his life: physiologist, pharmacologist, bacteriologist, biochemist, molecular biologist. In 1937 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for his work in isolating vitamin C and his advances in the study of intercellular respiration; in 1954 he received the Albert and Mary Lasker Award from the American Heart Association for his contribution to the understanding of heart disease through his research in muscle physiology. In later years, Szent-Györgyi moved into the electron sphere, where he studied matter smaller than molecules, seeking the substances that would define the basic building blocks of life. In his late seventies, he founded the National Foundation for Cancer Research.

Albert Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrapolt was born in Budapest, Hungary, on September 16, 1893, to Miklos and Josephine Szent-Györgyi von Nagyrapolt...