Endre Bíró

Endre Bíró 1946

Endre Bíró (born April 22, 1919 in Budapest , † June 13, 1988 in Velem ) was a Hungarian biochemist whose research results in the biochemistry of muscle and muscle contraction found international recognition. His full name is Miklós Endre Bíró, translated into English as Nicholas Andrew Bíró, hence he is referred to as NA Bíró in his English publications.

Early life

Endre Bíró was born on April 19, 1919 as the second son of Lipót Bíró and Emma Gráber in a liberal-minded family. Bíró received a master's degree in physics and chemistry from the University of Science in Szeged , then called the Miklós Horthy University of Szeged. Bíró received the university award for his work The determination of the Avogadro number based on the study of emulsions. He obtained his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry and experimental physics in June 1942. After graduating from university, Bíró tried not even to look for a job, given the social conditions prevailing at the time and Hungary's anti-Jewish laws.

Endre Bíró in Bucharest in January 1945 in a military coat. (The size of the original photo is 5.5 × 4.0 cm.)

In 1942 he was drafted into the labor service required of Jewish men during World War II who were denied access to the Hungarian army due to Hungary's anti-Jewish laws. Hungarian Jewish men of military age were used as auxiliary troops in the Hungarian army. They were not allowed to wear weapons or military uniforms towards the end of the war. In the summer of 1944, Bíró deserted his labor service unit in Transylvania, became a Soviet prisoner of war, and fortunately was able to travel first to Brassó and then to Bucharest, where he lived for almost twelve months between 1944 and 1945 and received help from the Joint . On his return to Hungary he read a report in one of the newspapers in which the newspaper informed its readers that Albert Szent-Györgyi was planning to come to Budapest to start a research institute.

In a letter of motivation dated April 9, 1945, written to Albert Szent-Györgyi and kept under Bíró's papers, he wrote, among other things: “As can be seen from the attached curriculum vitae, the reason I went to university was my intention to to dedicate myself to pure scientific research. I felt like I had a talent for science, but in the previous regime I could not achieve much in scientific research due to circumstances beyond my control. I am committed to my decision to do pure scientific research, although I am aware that a scientist does not get a high salary. "

Albert Szent-Györgyi on the left, Tamás Erdős on the right, next to him Endre Bíró, the person whose face cannot be seen is WFHM Mommaerts , Stockholm, 1947, the Sixth International Congress on Experimental Cytology

Left WFHM Mommaerts and Albert Szent-Györgyi, right Endre Bíró and Tamás Erdős, Stockholm, 1947, the Sixth International Congress for Experimental Cytology

Scientific career

Bíró began his scientific career at the Biochemistry Institute of the Péter Pázmány University in Budapest in 1945, an institute that Albert Szent-Györgyi founded in the same year.

“It was Albert Szent-Györgyi who founded the first Hungarian school of biochemistry, whose activities have since become world-famous. Among the researchers at the institute we can a. Ilona Banga, Endre Bíró, Tamás Erdős, Mihály Gerendás, János Gergely, Ferenc Guba, Kálmán Laki and Brúnó Ferenc Straub . "

In memory of these times, one of Bíró's colleagues writes: “I started my career as a freshly graduated from the Medical Chemistry Institute in 1950. Mátyas Rákosi, officially named Stalin's best student, had already introduced a reign of terror in the country and the waves of terror reached the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and universities, including the Institute of Medicinal Chemistry. Endre Bíró only recently survived the shameful times of 1944, and now he has to face a new crisis: colleagues who had similar careers benefited greatly from the 'new order' and thus became a tool of terror. Endre Bíró stayed away from this 'solution'. […] Endre Bíró led an exemplary life, he was very respectful of science and he never treated it as a means of his career. Because of his modesty, he was unfairly pushed into the background. (...) A professor who heads an institute does not always have time for the junior research assistants. However, Zebi (Endre Bíró's joke name was 'Zebi') was always available when needed. We had a maxim: 'Don't worry, Zebi will solve it!' "

Albert Szent-Györgyi and his team, including Bíró, attended the 6th International Congress on Experimental Cytology from July 10-17, 1947 in Stockholm. Dissatisfied with Hungary's communist rule, most of the members of Albert Szent-Györgyi's team emigrated to the West. “Sometime in late 1946 and early 1947 Albert Szent-Györgyi received a letter from a colleague in South America. He offered Szent-Györgyi a research position and volunteered to take on his assistants as well. Albert read this letter over afternoon tea, a custom that had been reintroduced in Budapest. 'Who would like to go with me?' he asked half jokingly. Only three of his young colleagues refused. One was a devoted communist, one had a family he could not leave; while Bíró, who was Jewish, felt relatively good about the new situation. Everyone else said, however, that they were ready to emigrate with their professor. ”(Bíró next met Szent-Györgyi twenty-five years later in America, in 1972, in Cold Spring Harbor.)

Bíró has a Ph.D. degree in Biological Sciences.

In 1950, the communist regime changed the name of Pázmány Péter University to Eötvös Loránd University and, a year later, political power reorganized the university's medical faculty into an independent medical school called Semmelweis University . The Institute for Medicinal Chemistry began in September 1949 under the direction of Bruno Ferenc Straub with part of the teaching staff from the former Biochemistry Institute as well as newly employed doctors and chemists. Based on memories, the first teachers of medicinal chemistry were Endre Bíró, Erzsébet Bölöny, Géza Dénes, György Feuer, György Gárdos, Tamás Garzó, Ferenc Guba, Dezső Prágay, István Szára, Mária Székely, Zsuzsa Szőnyi and Agnes Ullmann .

In 1953, Bíró was invited to head the animal biochemistry department at the Faculty of Science at Eötvös Loránd University. After a few years, as instructed by the Ministry of Culture, the department ended its activities and a small biochemical research unit was organized in the genetics department. In the beginning, this research team only had two full-time employees - Endre Bíró and Béla Nagy, who had recently graduated from university. After Béla Nagy emigrated to the USA, András Mühlrad became the second member of the research team.

In memory of those times, András Mühlrad points out: “I have never met a researcher who was so free from any vanity and narrow-minded ambition. Bíró was always ready to give his students and colleagues good advice. His broad knowledge transcended biochemistry, and that included the social sciences. His contact with people was characterized by the fact that he naively always accepted the best of all people with whom he came in contact, therefore he hardly had any enemies. This is something rare in the world of science where problems of moral integrity can be observed even among the best of researchers. "

“From 1962 the research department employed new employees (Gabriella Kelemen, Miklós Bálint and György Hegyi). At the time, this research group was poorly equipped, but thanks to the ingenuity of Bíró, this was largely offset. Due to his patented invention, the company Hungarian Optical Works started the production of the first Hungarian photometer called UVIFOT, which could also work in the ultraviolet range. In 1968, the biochemical research unit became independent from the chair for genetics and moved into spacious rooms, on the ground floor and in the basement of a university building at 3. Pushkin Street. The long-awaited move was enthusiastically celebrated by both the staff and the students. "

In 1968 Bíró became a university professor and head of the newly established Department of Biochemistry. In addition to extensive teaching activities, the Department of Biochemistry at Eötvös Loránd University has researched the biochemistry of proteins and the biology of muscle contraction. The chair had internationally recognized results in studying the structure of myosin.

The activities of the Biochemistry Research Group and then of the Department of Biochemistry focused on Bíró's research topics. Bíró published one of his most outstanding research results together with András Szent-Györgyi jun., The cousin of Albert Szent-Györgyi. They indicated that the activity of myosin Mg-ATP can be enhanced with actin. The school of Bíró had an excellent performance even by today's strict standards and contributed greatly to the good reputation of Hungarian biochemistry.

Bíró's interests were not limited to the natural sciences. He was a member of the circle of artists, scientists and scholars that arose around the philosopher, Lajos Szabó . Lajos Szabó, an intellectual guru, had several new students from each generation. Endre Bíró met him through his brother Gábor Bíró, who was seven years older than him. Lajos Szabó's circle was by no means an organization with formalized rules. This was a society of friends and an open school with a multidisciplinary approach. Between 1947 and 1950 Bíró attended lectures given by Lajos Szabó. The essayist Béla Hamvas and the philosopher Béla Tábor sometimes took part in these lectures .

Endre Bíró translated extensive excerpts from James Joyce Finnegans Wake and wrote an extensive study of this novel. As a result of communist censorship, these translations and the accompanying essay could not be published in Hungary. They were first published in Yugoslavia in 1964 in the Hungarian literary monthly Híd (Bridge). (This journal of the Hungarian minority in Yugoslavia, was open to the aspirations of the avant-garde.) A Paris-based major literary journal founded by Hungarian intellectuals who fled Hungary in 1956, Magyar Műhely (Hungarian Workshop) published the translation along with the study via Finnegans Wake. This translation had a proven impact on postmodern Hungarian prose.

Selected Works

• Endre Bíró: Nitro- és dimethylglyoxim-kobalti complexek fényelnyelése (The light absorption of nitro and cobalt-dimethylglyoxime complexes), dissertation, Szeged, 1942
• NA Bíró and A. Szent-Györgyi Jun .: “Observations on the Oxidation of Succinic Acid” Hungarica Acta Physiologica 1946, pp. 9–15
• NA Bíró and AE Szent-Györgyi: "Influence of KCI and ATP on the Succinodehydrogenase and Cytochrome Oxydase" Hungarica Acta Physiologica 1949, pp. 120-133
• NA Bíró and A. Szent-Györgyi Jun .: “Observations on Washed Muscle.” Hungarica Acta Physiologica (1948) 215-217. O.
• NA Bíró and AE Szent-Györgyi: "The Effect of Actin and Physico-Chemical Changes on the Myosin ATP-ase System and on Washed Muscle" Hungarica Acta Physiologica (1949) 120-133. O.
• Az izomfehérjék biokémiája a mechanokémiai kapcsolat szempontjából (The biochemistry of muscle proteins in relation to the mechanochemical connection), Ph.D. Dissertation, Budapest, 1955
• Nagymolekulasúlyú telítetlen zsírsavak nagyvákuumban való viselkedésének vizsgálata (The study of unsaturated fatty acids with high molecular weight in a high vacuum), advanced Ph.D. Dissertation, Budapest, 1967
• Symposium on the Muscle , edited by NA Bíró and N. Garamvölgyi, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1974
• Proceedings of the 9th Meeting of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies (Proteins of Contractile Systems ), edited by György Gárdos and NA Bíró, Amsterdam, North-Holland-American Elsevier, Budapest, Akadémiai Kiadó, 1977

Selected textbooks

• Endre Bíró: A gyógyszeripar (The Pharmaceutical Industry), Budapest, Országos Neveléstudományi Intézet, 1949.
• Endre Bíró: A modern biokémia alapkérdései (The Fundamental Questions of Modern Biochemistry), Budapest, Gondolat, 1962.
• Endre Bíró: Biokémia (biochemistry), Budapest, Tankönyvkiadó, 1972, a textbook for students, second, revised edition.
• Endre Bíró (Ed.): Biokémia (Biochemie) / Authors: Gabriella Kelemen [et al.], Budapest, Tankönyvkiadó, 1983, in two volumes, p. 882.
• Endre Bíró (Ed.): Biokémiai gyakorlatok (Practical Biochemistry) / Authors: Gabriella Kelemen [et al.], Budapest, Tankönyvkiadó, 1983, textbook for Hungarian students, fifth, unchanged republication.

Selected translations

• "Szemelvények a Finnegans Wake böl" (excerpts from Finnegans Wake), (translated and presented by Endre Bíró), "Híd" (bridge), November 1964, pp. 1241–1256.
• “Szemelvények a Finnegans Wake böl” (excerpts from Finnegans Wake), “Magyar Műhely” (Hungarian workshop), Paris, September 1973. pp. 9–59 and June 1979, pp. 22–29.
• James Joyce: "Finnegan ébredése: részletek" (excerpts from Finnegans Wake), (translated and presented by Endre Bíró), Budapest, Holnap Kiadó, 1992 and 1994.

literature

• In memoriam Bíró Endre Bíró. In: Biokémia (quarterly journal of the Hungarian Biochemical Society), March 1989, The authors are colleagues and former colleagues: Miklós Bálint, László Gráf, Mihály Bárány, Ágnes Jancsó, András Mühlrad, Ferenc Fábián and Dezsó Prágay, as well as Bergerbiner István Prágay. 21-36 ( mbkegy.hu ).
• Biography of Endre Bíró on the website of the Department of Biochemistry at Eötvös Loránd University ( Bíró Endre [1919–1988] PDF).
• The history of the Department of Biochemistry ( biokemia.elte.hu ).

proof

1. ↑ “Szeged presented its own peculiarities. Because the faculty in Budapest was notoriously pro-fascist, Jewish students in the 1930s found it easier to enter provincial colleges than to study in the hated universities of Budapest. The percentage of Jewish students at the University of Szeged each September was higher than the five percent required by law. This turned out to be a good pretext for uprisings by right-wing students, especially members of the Turul organization. Prof. NA Bíró remembers those days well. 'Of Jewish origin and from a liberal family, he was only admitted to the University of Szeged with the help of a non-Jewish family friend. Unrest broke out in Szeged every autumn. NA Bíró and other Jewish students were warned and they hid across the river in the Új Szeged district until the fighting was over. '"Ralph W. Moss: Free Radical: Albert Szent-Gyorgyi and the Battle over Vitamin C. Paragon House Publishers, New York 1988, p. 104.
2. ↑ Endre Bíró: Nitro- és Dimethylglyoxim-kobalti complexek fényelnyelése (The light absorption of nitro- and cobalt-dimethylglyoxime complexes), Ph. D. Dissertation, Szeged, 1942
3. ↑ "Up to 1940, the number of Jews affected by anti-Jewish legislation in Hungary was about 224,000." WS Faber: Hungary's Alibi, WS Faber, London, 1944, p. 31.
4. ↑ Most of the Szent-Györgyi students from Szeged had joined him in Budapest. (...) NA Bíró, who had survived a work team for Jews in Transylvania, was there, as was Ilona Banga, who had saved most of the scientific instruments in Szeged from looters. "Ralph W. Moss: Op. Cit. P. 153
5. ↑ Pál Elodi: Biokémia (biochemistry), Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1981, p 850th
6. ↑ Dezső Prágay in: In memory of Professor Endre Bíró (Memories of Professor Endre Bíró). In: Biokémia (The Quarterly Journal ), Hungarian Biochemical Society, March 1989.
7. ↑ Ralph W. Moss: Op. cit. Pp. 157-158
8. ↑ Az izomfehérjék biokémiája a mechanokémiai kapcsolat szempontjából (The biochemistry of muscle proteins in relation to the mechanochemical connection), Ph.D. Dissertation, 1955 in Budapest, 1955, and an advanced PhD in biological sciences
9. ↑ Nagymolekulasúlyú telítetlen zsírsavak nagyvákuumban való viselkedésének vizsgálata (The investigation of high molecular weight unsaturated fatty acids in a high vacuum), advanced Ph. D. dissertation, Budapest, 1967.
10. ↑ András Mühlrad in: In memory of Professor Endre Bíró. In: Biokémia (The Quarter of the Hungarian Biochemical Society), March 1989.
11. ↑ A tanszék története  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (The history of the Department of Biochemistry)  
12. ^ The cousin of Albert Szent-Györgyi.