Laszlo Lorand (23 March 1923 – 6 December 2018) was a Hungarian-American biochemist who studied clotting of blood and other bodily fluids. A professor emeritus in cell and molecular biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Lorand was a longtime professor in the departments of chemistry and molecular biosciences at Northwestern University before transferring to Northwestern's medical school. Lorand was a co-discoverer of the substance that later became known as factor XIII. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

László Lóránd
Born(1923-03-23)23 March 1923
Died6 December 2018(2018-12-06) (aged 95)
Alma materUniversity of Leeds
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemistry
InstitutionsFeinberg School of Medicine

Biography edit

Lorand was born in Győr, Hungary. His father was murdered in Auschwitz, but he himself managed to avoid being sent there.[1] Lorand was a Holocaust survivor and Jewish.[2] He submitted a record of his experiences in the Holocaust to the Yad Vaashem witness data base programme in Israel.[3]

He studied medicine in Hungary and received an absolutorium from the University of Budapest.[4] In Hungary, he was mentored by biochemists Albert Szent-Györgyi and Kalman Laki. Owing to events related to the Cold War, Lorand left Budapest for England in December 1948, just after finishing his medical school coursework.[5] The biomolecular structure department at the University of Leeds was chaired by physicist and molecular biologist William Astbury. He became interested in Lorand's prior work on the viscosity of fibrin.[5] Lorand earned a Ph.D. in biomolecular structure from Leeds in 1951.[6]

Lorand was a professor at Wayne State University, and then he came to Northwestern and spent many years in the departments of chemistry and molecular biosciences. In 1993, he transferred to Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine.[4] Lorand is associated with the Feinberg Cardiovascular Research Institute.[7] He was the co-editor of Proteolytic Enzymes, a volume of the scientific series Methods in Enzymology.[8] He was a co-discoverer of factor XIII, which was formerly referred to as Laki–Lorand factor and fibrin stabilizing factor.[9]

In 1983, Lorand was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago.[10] He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1987.[11]

Lorand met Joyce Bruner, also a scientist, in 1953. They later married, and Joyce Bruner-Lorand collaborated with her husband on NIH-funded studies at Northwestern for many years. Joyce died in 2010.[12]

Lorand died in 2018.[13]

References edit

  1. ^ "The biochemist who came in from the cold". Leeds University Alumni Magazine. February 2021. Retrieved 2021-03-03.
  2. ^ "Laszlo Lorand". Legacy.com. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  3. ^ https://www.mbl.edu/obituaries/laszlo-lorand/
  4. ^ a b "Lorand honored at biomedical symposium". Feinberg School of Medicine. 25 November 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  5. ^ a b Lorand, L (July 2005). "Factor XIII and the clotting of fibrinogen: From basic research to medicine". Journal of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. 3 (7): 1337–1348. doi:10.1111/j.1538-7836.2005.01213.x. PMID 15978088. S2CID 46470020.
  6. ^ "Laszlo Lorand, PhD". Feinberg School of Medicine. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  7. ^ "A-Z Faculty". Feinberg School of Medicine. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  8. ^ Proteolytic enzymes. WorldCat. OCLC 155908.
  9. ^ Chandrasekhar, N; Osbahr, A; Laki, K (March 9, 1964). "The mode of action of the Laki-Lorand factor in the clotting of fibrinogen". Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. 15 (2): 182–187. doi:10.1016/0006-291X(64)90321-3. PMID 26410914.
  10. ^ "Board of Trustees Minutes – 1984". University of Illinois. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
  11. ^ "Laszlo Lorand". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  12. ^ "Joyce Bruner-Lorand". Marine Biological Laboratory. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  13. ^ "Laszlo Lorand". www.mbl.edu. Retrieved May 17, 2020.