| Andrzej Viktor Schally | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 November 1926 Wilno, Second Polish Republic |
| Education | McGill University |
| Profession | Medicine |
| Institutions | Baylor College of Medicine Tulane University University of Miami |
| Specialism | Endocrinology |
| Notable prizes | Albert Lasker Award (1975) Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1977) |
Andrzej "Andrew" Viktor Schally (born November 30, 1926) is a Polish-born American endocrinologist and Nobel Prize laureate (1977) in medicine, sharing the prize that year with Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow.
Schally was born in Wilno, Second Polish Republic (now Vilnius, Lithuania), as the son of Gen. Brigadier Kazimierz Schally who was Chief of the Cabinet of President Ignacy Mościcki of Poland and Maria Łącka, Polish noble woman from an old and known family.
In September 1939, when Poland has been attacked by Germany, Schally escaped with the Poland's President Ignacy Mościcki, Prime Minister and the whole cabinet to then neutral Romania, where they were interned.
I was fortunate to survive the holocaust while living among the Jewish-Polish Community in Roumania. I used to speak Polish, Roumanian, Yiddish, Italian and some German and Russian, but I have almost completely forgotten them, and my French in which I used to excel is also now far from fluent.[1]
Immediately after the war, in 1945, he moved via Italy and France to England and Scotland. Schally received his education in Scotland and England. In 1952, he moved to Canada. He received his doctorate in endocrinology from McGill University in 1957. That same year he left for a research career in the United States where he has worked principally at Tulane University. Schally currently conducts research in Endocrinology at the Miami Veteran's Administration Medical Center in Miami, Fl. A Canadian citizen when he left Canada, Schally became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1962. He was affiliated with the Baylor College of Medicine for some years in Houston, Texas.[2]
He developed a whole new realm of knowledge concerning the brain's control over the body chemistry. His works also addressed birth control methods and growth hormones. He—as well as Roger Guillemin—described the neurohormone GnRH that controls FSH and LH.
Schally received an honoris causa Doctors degree from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He received a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1977.