Zsuzsanna Huszti

Zsuzsanna Huszti, of the famous Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, was born on the 16th of March 1936 in Szeged.. In 1954 she entered the University of Szeged in the faculty of Natural Sciences where she studied chemistry. After getting her diploma in chemistry 1959, she worked as a research assistant at the Central Research Laboratory of the Szent-Györgyi Albert Medical School in Szeged. In 1962, Zsuzsanna started her doctorate work in biochemistry at the Eötvös József University, Budapest. At that time she also had a position as clinical chemist in the Central Hospital, Gyula, and as a research assistant at the Department of Pharmacology in the Drug Research Institute, Budapest. From 1971 to 1981 she was head of the Radioactive Laboratory at the Department of Biochemistry, Drug Research Institute, Budapest. From 1997 she became the head of the Neurobiobiology Unit in the Department of Pharmacodynamics, Semmelweis University of Medicine, Budapest. Although her first publication was in 1963, her first one on histamine was in 1967 and her Ph.D. thesis (1972) was entitled “Heterogeneity of monoamine oxidase in rat brain”. This was followed by postdoctoral position in the Department of Neurobiology, at McGill University, Montreal, Canada working with Professor Theodore L. Sourkes. This resulted in a fruitful collaboration and many papers about histidine metabolism. In 1994 Zsuzsanna produced a second thesis; this time for Doctor of Biological Science degree. This thesis was entitled “Histamine in the nervous system: regulation of histamine synthesis and function in the brain”. She has published over 75 publications; most are concerned with histamine. She was a member of several scientific societies, namely the Hungarian Society of Biochemistry, International Society for Neurochemistry (ISN), Hungarian Pharmacological Society, European Society for Neurochemistry (ESN), International Brain Research (IBRO) and New York Academy of Sciences plus our society. Zsuszanna Huszti has had a long standing connection with the EHRS. She was invited by Professor Maslinski, who had read her articles, to the very first informal meeting of the ‘Histamine Club’ held in Lodz, Poland 1971. After this meeting she has visited 36 EHRS meetings in total. She was the EHRS National Secretary for Hungary from 1972-2000. She gave an EHRS Invited Lecturer at the meeting in Eger (2004) with the title: Histamine uptake by non-neuronal cells of the brain: properties and function. She brilliantly organized two unforgettable EHRS meetings in Hungary, the IXth EHRS Meeting 1980 in Visegrad and the XXIIIrd EHRS Meeting 1994 in Budapest. Many pictures from the different EHRS meeting can be seen under Previous Meetings on our website www.EHRS.org.uk. Zsuzsanna Huszti has for many years been devoted to our society, interested in science and young researchers and always is putting interesting questions to the speakers at our meetings. So with this it is a great honour to present the EHRS Honourary Membership to Zsuzsanna Huszti.