Jakub Karol Parnas

Infobox_Scientist
name = Jakub Karol Parnas


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caption = Jakub Karol Parnas
birth_date = birth date|1884|1|16
birth_place = Mokriany, Austro-Hungarian Empire
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death_date = death date and age|1949|1|29|1884|1|16
death_place = Moscow, USSR
field =
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alma_mater = Royal Technical College of Charlottenburg
doctoral_advisor =
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known_for = Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway
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Jakub Karol Parnas, also known as Yakov Oskarovich Parnas ( _ru. Яков Оскарович Парнас) (January 16, 1884 – January 29, 1949) was a prominent Polish–Soviet biochemist who contributed to the discovery of the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway, together with Otto Fritz Meyerhof and Gustav Georg Embden. A collaborator with the Soviet regime since its invasion of Poland in 1939, he fell victim to a Stalinist purge in 1949.

Biography

Parnas was born in 1884 in Mokriany near Drohobych, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the province of Galicia (now split between Poland and Ukraine), to Jewish parents. He graduated from the Royal Technical College of Charlottenburg in 1904. From 1920 to 1941, he was head of the Institute of the Medical Chemistry at Lviv University. He traveled across Europe, collaborating with universities in Cambridge, Naples, Strasbourg, Ghent and Zurich. He was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Corresponding Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, as well an honorary doctor of Sorbonne University and the University of Athens.

After the Soviet invasion of Poland and annexation of Western Ukraine in 1939 by the Soviet Union, Parnas remained in Lviv to continue his work in the institute. He also started collaborating with the Soviet authorities by taking on a political role in the communist District Soviet Worker's Delegation. In 1941, after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Parnas was evacuated deeper into the USSR and remained there for the rest of his life. Only a few days after his departure Lviv was occupied by the Nazi Germany army, who massacred approximately 45 Lwów professors.

In the Soviet Union, Parnas met Joseph Stalin, convinced him of his usefulness and shortly thereafter received his own laboratory. He became an Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and a founding member of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR.

Despite his achievements and popularity, Parnas was falsely accused of being a spy of the West and arrested by the KGB on January 28, 1949. According to KGB's archives, he died during his first interrogation at Lubyanka prison from a heart attack on January 29, 1949.

Achievements

Parnas's major work was the study of the mechanisms of carbohydrate metabolism in muscle tissue. Together with Władysław Baranowski, he discovered the process of phosphorolysis. [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1947/cori-lecture.pdf.] Parnas also made a major contribution to the theoretical analysis of glycolysis.

Legacy

Parnas is honored by the Polish–Ukrainian Parnas Conference organized by the Polish and UkrainianBiochemical Societies, which has been held every two years since 1999.

References

*Tomasz Cieszyński, [http://www.lwow.home.pl/parnas.html O PROFESORZE JAKUBIE PARNASIE NA TLE LWOWA z lat 1938 do 1945] (see bottom of the article for English summary)
*Tadeusz Korzybski, "Słownik biologów polskich", Warszawa 1987

External links

* [http://www.actabp.pl/pdf/Supl2_07/OL.pdf Barańska J "et al". (2007) Jakub Karol Parnas – life and creativity (Opening Lecture), 6th Parnas Conference Molecular Mechanism of Cellular Signalling (Kraków, Poland, 30 May – 2 June 2007) "Acta Biochimica Polonica" 54 (Suppl. 2), 1]

Persondata
NAME = Parnas, Jakob Karol
ALTERNATIVE NAMES = Parnas, Yakov Oskarovitch; Парнас, Яков Оскарович (Russian)
SHORT DESCRIPTION = 20th century Polish biochemist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH = January 16, 1884
PLACE OF BIRTH = Drohobycz, Poland
DATE OF DEATH = January 29, 1949
PLACE OF DEATH = Moscow, Russia