Gábor Fodor

Who was Gábor Fodor?

Gábor Béla Fodor was a Hungarian-American chemist, medical research scientist, and professor of chemistry. His work in academia, which spanned six decades in Europe and later in North America, specialized in research of antidotes, painkillers, tropane alkaloids,and derivatives of vitamin C. His research helped in finding treatments for cancer, strokes, Alzheimer's disease,and other illnesses.

Gábor Fodor was born in Budapest. His father was Domokos Fodor, an ethnic Hungarian born in Transylvania, Romania. His mother was Paola Maria Bayer, a Roman Catholic of Jewish ancestry from Budapest. Gábor Fodor attended the University of Szeged, and he earned his Ph..D magna cum laude. He isolated scopolamine, during his years working at the University of Szeged. He later worked at Budapest's Chinoin Laboratories. Scopolamine was a highly important compound during World War II. Fodor succeeded twice in escaping imprisonment, and possible internment at a concentration camp due to his Jewish ancestry, during Nazi Germany's control of Hungary. He became part of the faculty of chemistry of the University of Szeged after World War II. He remained there as Provost until 1957, when he was forced to flee the country due to his participation in faculty and student rebellions during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against the Soviet domination of Hungary.