Endre Bíró

In 1968 the Biochemistry Research Unit became independent of the Department of Genetics and moved into spacious premises, located on the ground-floor and the basement of a university building under 3 Pushkin Street. The long-awaited event was enthusiastically celebrated by both the staff members and the students."

In 1968 Bíró became a university professor and the head of the newly established Department of Biochemistry. In addition to extensive teaching activities, the Department of Biochemistry at Eötvös Loránd University did research into the biochemistry of proteins and the biology of muscle contraction. The Department had internationally recognized results in the study of the structure of myosin.

They were first published in 1964 in Yugoslavia in the Hungarian literary monthly Híd (Bridge). (This magazine for ethnic Hungarians living in Yugoslavia was open to the pursuits of the avant-garde.) A Paris-based important literary magazine founded by Hungarian intellectuals who fled Hungary in 1956, Magyar Műhely (Hungarian Workshop) published the translation along with the essay on Finnegans Wake. This translation had a significant impact on post-modern Hungarian prose.

"From 1962 on, the research unit employed new staff (Gabriella Kelemen, Miklós Bálint and György Hegyi). Back then this research group was poorly equipped, but this was largely offset thanks to the ingenuity of Bíró. Based on his patented invention, the Hungarian Optical Works started to produce the first Hungarian photometer, called UVIFOT, which could operate also in the ultraviolet range.

Bíró got a Ph.D. degree in biological sciences in 1955, and an advanced doctorate degree of biological sciences in 1967.

In 1953 Bíró was invited to head the Animal Biochemistry Department of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Eötvös Loránd University. However, as instructed by the Ministry of Culture, after a few years the department ended its activities, and within the Department of Genetics, a small Biochemistry Research Unit was set up. In the beginnings, this research unit had only two full-time employees – Bíró and the recently graduated Béla Nagy. After Béla Nagy had gone to the United States, András Mühlrad became the second member of the research unit.

Remembering these times, one of Bíró's colleagues writes as follows: "I started my career as a fresh university graduate at the Medical Chemistry Institute in 1950. Mátyas Rákosi, who was officially referred to as the «best disciple of Stalin», had already instituted a reign of terror in the country, and the waves of the terror started to reach the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as well as the universities, including the Medical Chemistry Institute, at this time. Endre Bíró hardly survived the shameful times of 1944, and now he had to face another crisis. Colleagues who had a similar career benefited a great deal from the «new order» and thus became willy-nilly the tools of terror. Endre Bíró stayed aloof from this «solution». (...) Endre Bíró led an exemplary life. He respected science very much indeed, and he never treated it as a means for his career. Due to his modesty, he was pushed to the background in an unfair way.... A professor heading an institute does not always have time for the junior research assistants. However, Zebi (as Endre Bíró was nicknamed for short) was always available when needed. We had a maxim: «Don't worry, Zebi will explain it!» "

In 1950 the Communist regime changed the name of Pázmány Péter University into Eötvös Loránd University and, a year later, made the medical faculty of the University into an independent medical school Semmelweis University.

Albert Szent-Györgyi and his team, including Bíró, attended the 6th International Congress of Experimental Cytology lasting from July 10 till July 17, 1947 in Stockholm. Dissatisfied with the Communist rule of Hungary, most members of Albert Szent-Györgyi's team emigrated to the West. (Bíró met Szent-Györgyi the next time twenty-five years later in 1972 in America, in Cold Spring Harbor.)

Bíró's interests were not limited to the natural sciences. He was a member of the circle of artists, scientists and scholars that emerged around philosopher, Lajos Szabó. Lajos Szabó, an intellectual guru had some new disciples from each generation. Bíró got acquainted with him through his brother, Gábor Bíró who was by seven years his senior. The circle of Lajos Szabó was by no means an organization with formalized rules. This was a company of friends and an open school with a multi-disciplinary approach. Between 1947 and 1950 Bíró attended the lectures delivered by Lajos Szabó. These lecture seminars were sometimes also attended by the essayist Béla Hamvas and the philosopher Béla Tábor.

In a motivation letter dated April 9, 1945 written to Albert Szent-Györgyi and preserved among Bíró's papers, he writes, among others, as follows: "As indicated by the enclosed resume, even earlier the reason for my going to university was my intention to devote myself to pure scientific research. I felt I had a scholarly aptitude. However, in the previous regime, due to circumstances beyond my control, I was not able to achieve much in scientific research. I am firmly committed to my decision of dealing with pure scientific research, although I am aware that being a scientist does not mean a high salary."

Bíró started his scientific career at the Biochemistry Institute of the Pázmány Péter University of Budapest in 1945, an institute that Albert Szent-Györgyi founded in the same year.

In the summer of 1944 Bíró defected his labor service unit in Transylvania, became a Soviet prisoner of war and before his return to Hungary he lived in Bucharest in 1944 and 1945. Bíró first went to Brassó and then to Bucharest, where he received help from the Joint.

Bíró was awarded the university's prize for his work "The Determination of the Avogadro Number Based on the Examination of Emulsions". He got his Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry and experimental physics in June 1942.

In 1942 he was drafted into labor service that was required of Jewish men during World War II, who, based on Hungary's anti-Jewish laws, were barred from serving in the Hungarian Army. Draft-aged Hungarian Jewish men were used as auxiliary troops of the Hungarian army. They were not allowed to bear arms, and towards the end of the war they were not allowed to wear military uniforms.

After having finished university, Bíró, taking into account the then prevailing social circumstances, did not even try to look for a job due to Hungary's anti-Jewish laws. ("By 1940 the number of Jews affected by anti-Jewish legislation in Hungary to the extent of being deprived of their livelihood was about 224,000.")

Endre Bíró (Budapest, April 22, 1919 – Velem, June 13, 1988) was a Hungarian biochemist whose research findings in the biochemistry of the muscle and muscle contraction found international recognition. (His full name is Miklós Endre Bíró translated into English as Nicholas Andrew Bíró hence in his publications in English he is referred to as N. A. Bíró.)

Endre Bíró was born on April 19, 1919, into a liberal-minded Hungarian-Jewish family as the second son of Lipót Bíró and Emma Gráber.