Gábor Fodor
Encyclopedia
Gábor Béla Fodor was a Hungarian (later naturalized American) chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...

 and medical research scientist.(He was born in Budapest Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, December 5, 1915 and died on November 3, 2000 in San Diego, California, United States.)

Graduating as a Magna Cum Laude Ph.D of Science, his lifetime work was dedicated to the search of antidote
Antidote
An antidote is a substance which can counteract a form of poisoning. The term ultimately derives from the Greek αντιδιδοναι antididonai, "given against"....

s, painkillers and derivatives of vitamin C
Vitamin C
Vitamin C or L-ascorbic acid or L-ascorbate is an essential nutrient for humans and certain other animal species. In living organisms ascorbate acts as an antioxidant by protecting the body against oxidative stress...

 and tropane alkaloids for the treatment and cure of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

, stroke
Stroke
A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...

s, Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

 and other illnesses.

He worked for Budapest's Chinoin laboratories, where he isolated homatropine
Homatropine
Homatropine is an anticholinergic medication that inhibits muscarinic acetylcholine receptors and thus the parasympathetic nervous system...

, which was needed during World War II, and he succeeded twice in escaping imprisonment during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. He was a devoted Christian. His father was Domokos Fodor from Hungarian Transylvannia, and his mother was Paola Maria Bayer from Budapest, a Roman Catholic of Jewish ancestry. He attended the University of Szeged
University of Szeged
The University of Szeged is one of Hungary's most distinguished universities, and is among the most prominent higher education institutions in Central Europe...

, where he was a professor until 1957. In the 1960s, he joined Laval University 1964–1968 as a Professor of Chemistry, and finally immigrated to the United States to work in the Department of Chemistry at West Virginia University
West Virginia University
West Virginia University is a public research university in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA. Other campuses include: West Virginia University at Parkersburg in Parkersburg; West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Montgomery; Potomac State College of West Virginia University in Keyser;...

 where he was Professor of Chemistry, Centennial Professor 1969–1986, and an Emeritus Professor. (when he was diagnosed with lung cancer) and his research laboratories at the university until 1999, when he worked in collaboration with several American laboratories, among which was Forest Laboratories in New York.

His specialized field of research were tropane alkaloids. He conducted some early studies of powerful drugs within this group that are found in natural sources. Such studies include an early configuration of cocaine and early studies of its medicinal uses, as well as numerous other compounds from these alkaloids. He worked with friend and fellow countryman Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi
Albert Szent-Györgyi de Nagyrápolt was a Hungarian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937. He is credited with discovering vitamin C and the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle...

 (Nobel Prize in Medicine 1937), under whose direction he isolated new vitamins and derivatives using all the letters in the alphabet to name them. Their lifelong friendship had a profound effect in his successive work with Vitamin C derivatives.
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