Ilona Banga

Ilona Banga (1906–1998) was a Hungarian biochemist known for co-discovering actomyosin and working to characterize how actin and myosin interact to produce muscle contraction. She and her husband József Mátyás Baló discovered the first elastase – an enzyme capable of degrading the protein elastin which gives tissues like veins their flexibility. She also contributed to work that earned Albert Szent-Györgyi the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1937, including by developing methods for the purification and characterization of large quantities of vitamin C.

Career After graduating, she joined the laboratory of Albert Szent-Györgyi at the University of Szeged's Institute for Medicinal Chemistry as a research assistant – she was the first associate for this future Nobel laureate. She retired in 1970.

Banga was never made a professor, even though (in 1950) she received her DSc degree, making her eligible.

Research Banga's initial work as Szent-Györgyi's associate involved studying carbohydrate metabolism. and further characterized myosin's ability to split ATP. The discovery was met with skepticism initially, but, by crystallizing elastase, Banga was able to clear up doubt. Banga died March 11, 1998.

Honors and awards Banga was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 1955 for her discovery of elastase – it was offered to her in 1952 but in what's believed to be an oversight, her husband and co-discoverer József Mátyás Baló was not included so, responding that the work was a joint effort, she declined the offer, accepting it in 1955 when the offer was made to the pair of them. She was the first awardee of the University of Szeged's Albert Szent-Györgyi Commemorative Medal (1986) and was elected to the Leopoldina Academy in Halle, East Germany in 1962.

Selected works

"Myosin and Muscular Contraction" – in this report, Banga et al. describe their groundbreaking experiments leading to the discovery of actomyosin

These archives contain Studies from the Institute of Medical Chemistry University Szeged – reports published by Banga and others in the Szent-Gyorgi laboratory during WWII