Károly Ereky (german: Karl Ereky; 20 October 1878 – 17 June 1952) was a Hungarian agricultural engineer. The term '

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used ...

' was coined by him in 1919. He is regarded by some as the "father" of biotechnology.

Early life

Ereky was born on 18 October 1878 in

Esztergom Esztergom ( ; german: Gran; la, Solva or ; sk, Ostrihom, known by alternative names) is a city with county rights in northern Hungary, northwest of the capital Budapest. It lies in Komárom-Esztergom County, on the right bank of the river ...

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

as Károly Wittmann. His father was István Wittmann and his mother Mária Dukai Takách. (Among her relatives was Judit Dukai Takách (1795-1836) who was the first Hungarian female poet.) In 1893 he changed his name to Ereky. He had three brothers: Jenő, Ferenc and István. Ereky finished grammar school at Sümeg and Székesfehérvár. He attended the

Technical University of Budapest Technical may refer to: * Technical (vehicle), an improvised fighting vehicle * Technical analysis, a discipline for forecasting the future direction of prices through the study of past market data * Technical drawing, showing how something is ...

and in 1900 received a degree in technical engineering. There may be a family connection between Ereky and compatriot Franz Wittmann, prominent electrical engineer and inventor of the Wittmann-oscilloscope.

Career

He then worked as machine designer for several paper and food industry companies in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

until 1905. He moved to

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

and became an assistant professor in József Technical University. In 1919 he became the Hungarian Minister of Food. He wrote over one hundred publications which were written in Hungarian and published in German. Ereky was also proficient in speaking both German and English. In 1922 he wrote a book on the mechanisms of chlorophyll and how it can be used for animal feeding. In 1925 he wrote a book on leaf proteins as a possible food source which he also promoted as a commercial product.

Biotechnology

Ereky coined the word "biotechnology" in Hungary during 1919 in a book he published in Berlin called ''Biotechnologie der Fleisch-, Fett- und Milcherzeugung im landwirtschaftlichen Grossbetriebe'' (Biotechnology of Meat, Fat and Milk Production in an Agricultural Large-Scale Farm) where he described a technology based on converting raw materials into a more useful product.Fiechter (ed.), ''History of Modern Biotechnology I'', p. 153 He built a slaughterhouse for a thousand pigs and also a fattening farm with space for 50,000 pigs, raising over 100,000 pigs a year. The enterprise was enormous, becoming one of the largest and most profitable meat and fat operations in the world. Ereky further developed a theme that would be reiterated through the 20th century: biotechnology could provide solutions to societal crises, such as food and energy shortages. For Ereky, the term "biotechnology" indicated the process by which raw materials could be biologically upgraded into socially useful products. The book sold several thousand copies within few weeks in Germany. In 1921 the book was translated into Dutch.

After WWII and death

On 19 September 1946, Ereky was sent to the prison of Vác for 12 years by People's Tribunal for his counter-revolutionary role in Hungary. He died in prison on 17 June 1952 at the age of 74.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ereky, Karoly 1878 births 1952 deaths People from Esztergom Hungarian scientists Government ministers of Hungary Biotechnologists Hungarian people who died in prison custody