András Garay

Pécs, 20 May 1926 – College Station, Texas, USA, 10 October 2005
Biologist

Director of the Institute of Biophysics of the BRC of the HAS („MTA”): 1973-1975

Studies:
András Garay studied as a member of the Eötvös College of Eötvös Loránd University and obtained an MSc degree as a teacher of chemistry and biology in 1949.

Career:
Between 1949 and 1951, András Garay worked at the Plant Physiology Department of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) as an Assistant Professor but in 1951 he was expelled from the University on political grounds. His first workplace outside the University was the Cotton Production Research Institute in the town of Székkutas (1951-1952). From 1952 until 1957, he worked in the Medicinal Plant Research Institute and, in 1957, he became a Scientific Research Fellow and, later, Laboratory Director of the Plant Breeding and Plant Production Research Institute of Fertőd. In the year 1967, when the Szeged Biological Research Centre was organised, he was admitted to the HAS and started working at the Plant Physiology Department of József Attila University. In 1971, when the Szeged Biological Research Centre was officially opened, he joined the Centre’s staff. In 1973, he was appointed Director of the Institute of Biophysics and held this position until 1975, when he left Hungary. In the year 1976, he was appointed Professor of Biophysics and Biochemistry of Texas A&M (Agricultural and Mechanical) University. From 1994 until his death in 2005, he worked as a Professor Emeritus there.

Research areas, scientific work:
András Garay obtained his PhD in 1950 and his Doctor of Sciences degree in 1957. He started his own scientific research career in the course of the years he spent in the town of Fertőd: he examined the mode of action of the auxin plant growth hormone. It was this research project that earned him the Doctor of Sciences degree in 1967. His later research examined the origin of the asymmetry of living organisms. The question raised and examined by him was whether the asymmetry experienced in living organisms has any connection with the symmetry breaking principle shortly before discovered by physicists, i.e. the asymmetry of weak interactions. Garay, András was elected a corresponding member of the HAS („MTA”) in 1973.