József Knoll

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József Knoll (May 30, 1925 – April 17, 2018) was a Hungarian scientist who studied drugs that affect the brain. He helped develop selegiline (also called L-deprenyl), an important drug for Parkinson’s disease and depression. He created selegiline in the 1960s and continued to study it for many years. Knoll also proposed ideas like monoaminergic activity enhancers (MAEs) and the mesencephalic enhancer regulation system. His work led to several MAEs, including selegiline, BPAP, and PPAP. He published 894 papers and held 55 patents, and his papers were cited more than 10,000 times. He is regarded as one of Hungary’s best-known pharmacologists. Knoll also explored possible drive- and longevity-promoting effects of selegiline and began taking a small daily dose himself in 1989 at age 64, a practice he kept for 22 years. He was born in Kassa, Hungary (now Košice, Slovakia) and died at age 92.