Gábor Farkas

Budapest, 15 June 1925 – Budapest, 16 April 1986
Plant Biochemist, Academician

Director of the Institute of Plant Physiology of the BRC of the HAS („MTA”):
1971 – 1983

Gábor Farkas graduated from Budapest University in the year 1949 as a teacher of biology and chemistry. Between 1948 and 1951, he was a Teaching Assistant and, later, an Assistant Lecturer at the Institute of Plant Physiology of Budapest University, where he reorganised and laid a new, modern foundation for practical training on plant physiology. Between 1951 and 1957, he worked in Martonvásár, in the Agricultural Research Institute of the HAS („MTA”). In the initial part of this period, he dealt with the physiology of the drought tolerance of industrial crops. From 1954, his interest turned to plant pathophysiology, the interdisciplinary area between plant physiology and plant pathology, which had until then received very little attention. It was the result of his work carried out in Martonvásár during this period and later in the Plant Protection Research Institute (1957-1962) that Hungary’s pathophysiology school was established, which brought Gábor Farkas significant international recognition. He identified a significant part of the enzyme level changes occurring in diseased plant tissues and pointed out the importance of these changes in the abnormal vital processes and disease resistance of diseased plants. His later research covered the respiration and phenol-metabolism of diseased plants. As the leader of the Plant Physiology Department’s Research Group (1962-1970) and of the Institute of Plant Physiology of the HAS („MTA”) (1970-1971), he achieved significant results in the clear identification of the characteristics of plants’ nucleic acid degrading enzymes and their hormonal regulation. Among others, he isolated a tissue senescence specific nuclease, which is regulated by the hormone pair responsible for tissue senescence and rejuvenation (abscisic acid – kinetin). From 1971 until 1983, the year of his retirement, he worked in Szeged as the Director of the Institute of Plant Physiology of the Szeged Biological Research Centre of the HAS („MTA”), playing a key role in the modernisation of the institute’s profile. During this period, his focus shifted to the use of plant protoplasts and cell and tissue cultures to resolve virology, cell genetics and differentiation issues. The introduction of the new methods mentioned (the work performed in the cell genetics and virus laboratories) is significant also from practical agricultural aspects. In the city of Szeged, he also carried out university lecturing activities, teaching plant physiology at József Attila University (now called Szeged University) as a key course. He earned his Doctor of Biological Sciences degree in 1962 and later became a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences („MTA”) (corresponding member from 1964, full member in 1976). In the year 1970, the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) elected him Academy member. He worked in the most excellent institutions of his field for shorter or longer periods from as early as the late 1950s: at the Saskatoon University (1957-58), the Centre National de Recherche Agronomique, Versailles (1963), the University of Wisconsin, Institute of Biochemistry, Madison (1964-65); in 1970-1971 he held a lecture tour in Nigeria and India; worked as a UNDP expert in India in 1974 and made a lecture and consultation tour to Vietnam in the year 1977. Gábor Farkas possessed a wide knowledge of languages: he had a good command of the English, German, French and Russian languages. He was an invited lecturer at numerous international congresses and symposia. Gábor Farkas was a member of the editorial staff of two Hungarian and numerous foreign scientific journals (including the Plant Science Letters and the FEBS Letters). He worked in several committees of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (Botany, Biochemistry). He was the Chairman of the Biochemistry Scientific Committee, a member of the Experimental Biology Section of the Committee of Scientific Qualifications (“TMB”) (predecessor of the Council of Doctors) and Vice Chairman of the Biology Section of the HAS („MTA”) (1973-76). His more than one hundred scientific papers were published in the international journals with the largest circulation, including Nature, Science, Naturwissenschaften, Virology and the FEBS Letters. He was the editor of several symposium summaries and the author of many book chapters published in other countries in foreign languages. However, the main work of his life was his book entitled „Plant Biochemistry” (“Növényi Biokémia”; originally published in Hungarian), which has been issued several times since its first publication.