Oleh Hornykiewicz

Oleh Hornykiewicz (17 November 1926 – 26 May 2020) was an Austrian biochemist.

Life

Oleh Hornykiewicz was born in 1926 in Sychów (now a district of Lviv), then in Poland (now Ukraine).^[1] 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 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

Awards

• 1972: Gairdner Foundation International Award
• 1979: Wolf Prize in Medicine, jointly with Roger Wolcott Sperry and Arvid Carlsson, "for opening a new approach in the control of Parkinson's disease by L-Dopa."^[4]
• 1993: Ludwig Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Science Foundation
• 1994: Schmiedeberg Medal of the German Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology
• 2001: Bill Roth Medal
• 2008: Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class^[5]
• 2010: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art^[6]
• 2014: Warren Alpert Foundation Prize^[7]