Casimir Funk

Kazimierz Funk[1] (Polish: [kaˈʑimjɛʂ ˈfuŋk]; February 23, 1884 – November 19, 1967[2]), commonly anglicized as Casimir Funk, was a Polish Jewish biochemist,[3] generally credited with being among the first to formulate (in 1912) the concept of vitamins,[4] which he called "vital amines" or "vitamines".

Kazimierz Funk
Born
Kazimierz Funk

(1884-02-23)February 23, 1884
Warsaw, Congress Poland
DiedNovember 19, 1967(1967-11-19) (aged 83)
Albany, New York, U.S.
NationalityPolish
CitizenshipPoland
United States
Alma materUniversity of Bern, Switzerland
Known forNutritional research, formulation of the concept of vitamins
Scientific career
FieldsBiochemist
InstitutionsPasteur Institute
Lister Institute
Funk Foundation for Medical Research

Achievements

After reading an article by the Dutchman Christiaan Eijkman that indicated that persons who ate brown rice were less vulnerable to beri-beri than those who ate only the fully milled product, Funk tried to isolate the substance responsible, and he succeeded. Because that substance contained an amine group, he called it "vitamine". It was later to be known as vitamin B3 (niacin), though he thought that it would be thiamine (vitamin B1) and described it as "anti-beri-beri-factor". In 1911 he published his first paper in English, on dihydroxyphenylalanine. Funk was sure that more than one substance like Vitamin B1 existed, and in his 1912 article for the Journal of State Medicine, he proposed the existence of at least four vitamins: one preventing beriberi (“antiberiberi”); one preventing scurvy (“antiscorbutic”); one preventing pellagra (“antipellagric”); and one preventing rickets (“antirachitic”). From there, Funk published a book, The Vitamines, in 1912, and later that year received a Beit Fellowship to continue his research.[5]

Funk proposed the hypothesis that other diseases, such as rickets, pellagra, coeliac disease, and scurvy could also be cured by vitamins.[6]

Funk was an early investigator of the problem of pellagra. He suggested that a change in the method of milling corn was responsible for the outbreak of pellagra,[7] but no attention was paid to his article on this subject.[8]

The "e" at the end of "vitamine" was later removed, when it was realized that vitamins need not be nitrogen-containing amines.

He postulated the existence of other essential nutrients, which became known as vitamins B1, B2, C, and D.

In 1936 he determined the molecular structure of thiamine, though he was not the first to isolate it.

Funk also conducted research into hormones, diabetes, peptic ulcers, and the biochemistry of cancer.

After returning to the United States, in 1940 he became president of the Funk Foundation for Medical Research. He spent his last years studying the causes of neoplasms ("cancers").

Funk Award

The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America (PIASA) annually honors Polish-American scientists with the Casimir Funk Natural Sciences Award. Past winners have included Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann, Aleksander Wolszczan, Hilary Koprowski, Peter T. Wolczanski, Wacław Szybalski, Zbyszek Darzynkiewicz and Benoit Mandelbrot.

Further reading
  1. Iłowiecki, Maciej (1981). Dzieje nauki polskiej (History of Polish Science). Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Interpress. p. 177. ISBN 978-83-223-1876-8.
  2. (in English) Griminger, P (1972). "Casimir Funk--a biographical sketch (1884-1967)". J Nutr. 102: 1105–13. doi:10.1093/jn/102.9.1105. PMID 4560436.
  3. George Rosen, A History of Public Health, JHU Press (2015), p. 240
  4. Just The Facts-Inventions & Discoveries, School Specialty Publishing, 2005
  5. Funk, Casimir (1914). Die Vitamine, ihre Bedeutung für die Physiologie und Pathologie: mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Avitaminosen: (Beriberi, Skorbut, Pellagra, Rachitis); Anhang: Die Wachstumsubstanz und das Krebsproblem. Wiesbaden: J. F. Bergmann. Retrieved 23 October 2018 – via Internet Archive.. See also Funk, Casimir (1922). The Vitamines. Translated by Dubin, Harry E. from the Second German Edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins. Retrieved 26 October 2018 – via Internet Archive.
  6. Funk, Casimir (1912). "The etiology of the deficiency diseases. Beri-beri, polyneuritis in birds, epidemic dropsy, scurvy, experimental scurvy in animals, infantile scurvy, ship beri-beri, pellagra". Journal of State Medicine. 20: 341–68.
  7. Funk, C (1913). "Studies on pellagra. The influence of the milling of maize on the chemical composition and nutritive value of the meal". J Physiol. 47 (4–5): 389–392. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1913.sp001631. PMC 1420484. PMID 16993244.
  8. Alfred, JAY Bollet (1992). "Politics and Pellagra: The Epidemic of Pellagra in the U.S. in the Early Twentieth Century" (PDF). The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine. 65 (3): 211–221. PMC 2589605. PMID 1285449.

Further reading
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