The Polish Nobel Laureates series: Andrzej Schally

Andrzej Wiktor Schally, also known as Andrew W. Schally, was born on November 20, 1926, in Wilno, Poland. During World War II, Schally had to leave Poland and live among the Jewish-Polish Community in Romania. In 1945, he moved via Italy and France to England and Scotland. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by nearly 20 universities, incl. Jagiellonian University. In 2021, he was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland.

Among Schally’s chief accomplishments were the synthesis of TRH (thyrotropin-releasing hormone), the isolation and synthesis of LHRH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone), and studies of the action of the peptide somatostatin. His research helped elucidate pathways of hormone regulation in males and females and contributed to the development of fertility treatments and contraceptives.

Together with Roger Guillemin, he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1977 “for their discoveries concerning the peptide hormone production of the brain”.

Hormones are substances that convey signals between different parts of the body and regulate their functions. Around the pituitary in the brain, Releasing hormones serve to release other hormones and are formed around the pituitary gland. The releasing hormones occur in very small amounts. From large quantities of pig brains and lamb brains respectively, Andrew Schally and Roger Guillemin separately extracted a sufficient amount of releasing hormone to determine its structure in 1969. They subsequently were able to produce it with chemical methods. (nobelprize.org)