Erik Jorpes

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Erik Jorpes
Biochemistry
InstitutionsKarolinska Institute
Doctoral advisorEinar Hammarsten

Johan Erik Jorpes (born Johansson, 15 July 1894 – 10 July 1973

medical chemistry in the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm in 1946–1963.[2]

Early life

Erik Jorpes was born as Johan Erik Johansson to a poor fisherman's family in the village of Överboda in Kökar in Åland. The family lived in a house called Jorpes, which he later adopted as his last name to replace the patronyme Johansson. After the primary school, his parents send the talented kid to high school in Turku. Other students of the Swedish-language Svenska klassiska lyceum came mostly from wealthy upper-class families, Jorpes was bullied of his social status and dialect. As a result, Jorpes got interested in socialist ideas in the early 1910s. He joined the local Social Democratic student organization and wrote marxist articles to the newspaper Arbetet.[1]

Jorpes graduated in 1914 and entered the

Soviet Russia, and finally Jorpes ended up working as a doctor in the Buy refugee camp, set for the Finnish Reds in the Kostroma Governorate. In August 1918, Jorpes attended the founding congress of the exile Communist Party of Finland in Moscow.[1]

As the Buy camp was disbanded in early 1919, Jorpes was offered a job in Saint Petersburg but he wanted to leave Russia and emigrate Sweden as a political refugee because the former Reds were prisoned in Finland. In the fall of 1919, Jorpes sneaked across the border to Finland and took a train to Turku. Jorpes was able to successfully enter Finland by wearing a bowler hat, something no one could imagine Jorpes wearing.[3] Jorpes was then shipped to his parents home in Kökar by local fishermen who soon smuggled him to Vaxholm in Sweden. The fisherman who smuggled Jorpes were fined later for helping a criminal escape.[4] The police visited the family a day after Jorpes had left.[1][5]

Life in Sweden

Jorpes arrived Stockholm in October 1919. He had no money, but managed to find a place to live and with the help of the prominent Social Democrat politician Hjalmar Branting, Jorpes was able to continue his medical studies in the Karolinska Institute. after promising to quit the politics. In 1923, Jorpes was granted the Swedish citizenship. Three years later he was appointed assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacology, and in 1946 Jorpes was named the professor of medical chemistry. Jorpes retired in 1963 and continued as a professor emeritus until his death in 1973. In 1949–1951, Jorpes and his predecessor, the professor Einar Hammarsten had a major influence on the architectural design of the building of chemistry of the Karolinska Institute Campus in Solna. The drawings were originally made in 1937 by the architect Tore Rydberg but the construction was postponed due to the World War II.[1][2][6]

His first research involved

Vitrum AB. The royalties soon made him a multimillionaire, but Jorpes gave most of his income to academic research or charity.[1]

In the early 1930s, Jorpes started his pioneering work on the isolation and structure of heparin. In 1936, he successfully purified heparin and subsequently demonstrated that it was localized in the mast cells of tissues. In the same year, Jorpes and the surgeon

prothrombin and thrombin. He also worked on von Willebrand disease with Erik Adolf von Willebrand.[2] In 1961, Jorpes and the docent Viktor Mutt isolated the hormone secretin.[7]

Jorpes was known as a strong personality. There was often tensions between Jorpes and his students and colleagues.[8] He was also a workaholic who enjoyed his time in the laboratory.[1] In 1952, Jorpes was a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with K.P.Link.[9] In 1945, he became a member of the

Åbo Akademi in Turku, Finland.[10] During his late years, Jorpes translated Russian literature to Swedish, wrote biographies of Nobel-awarded scientists, and published popular science articles in the Social Democratic newspaper Arbetarbladet.[1]

In 1994, Aland released a set of stamps, one of which honored Erik Jorpes and his contribution to heparin.[11]

Personal life

Erik Jorpes was married with Ida Elvira Ståhl (1896–1976) in 1930.[1] Ida was a domestic science teacher when she met Jorpes.[4] She was said to be a loving wife and tried her best to spoil her husband despite him always being at work.[4] They had two children, daughter Birgitta and son Per, born in 1933 and 1935.[12]

Jorpes was a biography author, and wrote multiple biographies over famous chemists. His most well known biography was written over Swedish chemist

Carl Linnæus.[3]

Jorpes often took his family on summer holiday to their vacation house on Runmarö, a Stockholm island, where he would to teach his sons about the birds, flowers, and fish on the island.[4] Jorpes and his wife are buried on Runmarö.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Lamberg , Bror-Axel (2014). "Jorpes, Erik (1894–1973)". Biografiskt lexikon för Finland (in Swedish). Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  2. ^
    PMID 9374981
    . Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  3. ^
    PMID 1091016
    .
  4. ^
    ISBN 9780444505477
    .
  5. ^ a b Ljungström, Olof (23 September 2015). "Erik Jorpes (1894–1973)". Karolinska Institutet. Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  6. ISBN 978-981-31446-3-7
    .
  7. ISBN 978-364-28070-6-0
    .
  8. ISBN 978-080-20373-9-8
    .
  9. ^ "Nobel Archive".
  10. ^ "Promotion 1968: Hedersdoktorer". Åbo Akademi (in Swedish). Retrieved 21 May 2017.
  11. ^ Rabinovich, Daniel (2013). "Heparin: the Mighty Carbohydrate". Chemistry International. 35: (1), 14. Retrieved 3 January 2021.
  12. ^ Rentola, Annika (1 August 2021). "Ålänningen Jorpes flydde Finland, men gav vården heparinet". Hufvudstadsbladet (in Swedish). pp. 24–27.

Literature

  • Backman, Runar (1985). Erik Jorpes: Kökar–Moskva–Stockholm (in Swedish). Helsingfors: Söderströms.
    ISBN 951-52-1023-2
    .
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