certed processes involving changes in two identical
bonds.
See alsoIMBALANCE.
synchrotron An instrument that accelerates electri-
cally charged particles close to the speed of light and
maintains them in circular orbits; a source of very
intense X rays.
synchrotron radiation Electromagnetic radiation
from very-high-energy electrons moving in a magnetic
field. Synchrotron radiation is highly polarized and
continuous, and its intensity and frequency are directly
related to the strength of the magnetic field and the
energy of the charged particles affected by the field.
The stronger the magnetic field and the higher the
energy of the particles, the greater are the intensity and
frequency of the emitted radiation.
synergism The combination of two or more sub-
stances in which the sum result of this combination is
greater than the effects that would be exhibited from
each of the individual substances alone.
synthase An ENZYME that catalyzes a reaction in
which a particular molecule is synthesized, not neces-
sarily by formation of a bond between two molecules.
See alsoLIGASE.
synthetase SeeLIGASE.
Szent-Györgyi, Albert von (1893–1986) Hungarian
Biochemist Albert von Szent-Györgyi was born in
Budapest on September 16, 1893, to Nicolaus von
Szent-Györgyi and Josefine, whose father, Joseph
Lenhossék, and brother Michael were both professors
of anatomy in the University of Budapest.
He took his medical degree at the University of Sci-
ences in Budapest in 1917, and in 1920 he became an
assistant at the University Institute of Pharmacology in
Leiden. From 1922 to 1926 he worked with H. J.
Hamburger at the Physiology Institute, Groningen,
Netherlands. In 1927 he went to Cambridge as a Rock-
efeller fellow, working under F. G. HOPKINS, and spent
one year at the Mayo Foundation, Rochester, Min-
nesota, before returning to Cambridge. In 1930 he
became chair of medical chemistry at the University of
Szeged, and five years later he was also chair in organic
chemistry. At the end of World War II, he was chair of
medical chemistry at Budapest.
Szent-Györgyi’s early researches concerned the
chemistry of cell respiration. He pioneered the study of
biological oxidation mechanisms and proved that hex-
uronic acid, which he isolated and renamed ascorbic
acid, was identical to vitamin C and that it could be
extracted from paprika. He won the 1937 Nobel Prize
in physiology or medicine for his discoveries, especially
of vitamin C.
In the late 1930s his work on muscle research
quickly led him to discover the proteins actin and
myosin and their complexes. This led to the foundation
of muscle research in the following decades. He also
worked on cancer research in his later years. In 1947
he moved to the United States, where he became direc-
tor of research, Institute of Muscle Research, Woods
Hole, Massachusetts.
His publications include Oxidation, Fermentation,
Vitamins, Health and Disease(1939); Muscular Con-
traction(1947); The Nature of Life(1947); Contrac-
tion in Body and Heart Muscle(1953); Bioenergetics
(1957); and The Crazy Ape(1970), a commentary on
science and the future of the human race. He died on
October 22, 1986.262 synchrotron