Swedish biochemist. He shared the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the chemical structures and biological functions of prostaglandins.
Sune Bergström was born on January 10, 1916, in Stockholm. He received a medical degree from the Karolinska Institute in the same city in 1943. Bergström, who did research at Columbia University and Squibb Institute in the USA between 1941-1942 during his education, worked at the Nobel Medical Institute in Stockholm between 1942-1946. At the end of this period, Bergström worked for a year at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and was a professor of biochemistry and head of the biochemistry department at Lund University between 1947-1958. Beginning in 1958, he was appointed professor at the Karolinska Institute, rector of this institution in 1969, and chairman of the Nobel Foundation in 1975. Bergström, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1982 with Bengt Samuelsson and John Vane, was for a long time chairman of the medical research advisory committee of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Karl Sune Detlof Bergström (10 January 1916 – 15 August 2004) was a Swedish biochemist. In 1975, he was appointed to the Nobel Foundation Board of Directors in Sweden, and was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University, together with Bengt I. Samuelsson. He shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bengt I. Samuelsson and John R. Vane in 1982, for discoveries concerning prostaglandins and related substances.
Apart from his work on cholesterol and bile acid, Bergström has devoted a significant portion of his research efforts to prostaglandins. The first studies on prostaglandins began in 1930 when two US researchers found the presence of a muscle-affecting substance in semen as a result of their research on sexual reproduction. Between 1933 and 1936, the Swedish Ulf von Euler was able to extract a substance with potent and widespread biological effects from sheep vesicular glands. Von Euler named this substance "prostaglandin" because he thought it was secreted only by the prostate. In 1945, again, von Euler persuaded Bergström to examine the chemical structure of this nearly forgotten invention. By 1957, the basic structure of prostaglandin had been determined and crystalline prostaglandin had been obtained.
Bergström succeeded in purifying prostaglandins with a new chromatography method developed at the Karolinska Institute to separate and study various oils.
Prostaglandins are very important compounds produced by every organ in the body and are similar to other hormones. The most important factor that distinguishes these compounds from hormones is that they are stored in tissues, not in the bloodstream. Thus, prostaglandin is transported to any part of the body where it is needed.
The most common effects of prostaglandins are seen when they are secreted together with inflammation and blood clotting resulting from various diseases and injuries. Excessive or under-secretion of prostaglandins causes important problems for the body. Hormonal imbalances, nutritional problems, stress, and genetic defects affect prostaglandin production.