Name Oleh Hornykiewicz Role Biochemist | Education University of Vienna | |
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Books The pharmacology of psychotherapeutic drugs Awards Wolf Prize in Medicine, Gairdner Foundation International Award | ||
Oleh Hornykiewicz (born 17 November 1926) is an Austrian biochemist.
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Biography
Hornykiewicz was born in 1926 in Sykhiw (a district of Lviv), then in Poland (now Ukraine). In 1951, he received his M.D. degree from the University of Vienna and joined the faculty of his alma mater the same year and has worked there ever since. He also served for twenty years as chairman of the Institute of Biochemical Pharmacology. In 1967, he began a long association with the University of Toronto in Canada and, in 1992, he was named professor emeritus at that institution.
One of his seminal accomplishments was the discovery that Parkinson's Disease was due to dopamine deficiency in the brain. He also played a key role in the development of L-dopa as a therapy for the disorder.