1893-1986

Hungarian-American biochemist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1937 for his research concerning the roles played by vitamin C in cellular metabolism. Szent-Györgyi isolated a reducing agent he called "hexuronic acid" and demonstrated that hexuronic acid (ascorbic acid) was identical to vitamin C, the antiscorbutic factor. Szent-Györgyi also investigated carbohydrate metabolism, the biochemistry of muscular action, the production of adenosine triphosphate (ATP, which serves as the immediate source of the energy needed for muscle contraction), and proposed theories concerning the causes of cancer.