She was born at Izsák (County Bács-Kiskun) in a physician-family, 1921. In 1939, she graduated from the Veres Pálné Secondary Grammar School, Budapest. Between 1939 and 1940, she studied languages and shorthand-typing in the School of Notre Dame de Sion, Budapest. In 1945, she was admitted to the Medical Faculty of Pázmány Péter University of Sciences; however, she received her medical diploma already at the University of Medicine of Budapest in 1950.

She entered to her first and last workplace in the National Institute of Public Health (managed by Dr. Elek Farkas at that time) in September, 1950.

In 1960, she received PhD degree for her thesis Studies with a Hungarian strain of tick-borne encephalitis virus. The D.Sc. degree was awarded to her for her dissertation with the title of The occurrence and public health significance of the tick-borne encephalitis and other arboviruses in Hungary in 1979.

In 1992, she specialized in medical laboratory testing.

The research team for tick-borne encephalitis virus of the Department was established when she began to work there and it determined her total scientific career.

The research for arboviruses was initiated by the increased number of meningoencephalitis cases at Tatabánya and its neighbouring settlements in the years of 1950 and 1952.

With the participation of Dr. Ferenc Fornosi (Department for Control of Viral Vaccines) and Dr. Magda Gulyás (Department for Parasitology), she identified the tick-borne encephalitis virus by the isolation of two virus strains from ticks (Ixodes ricinus) and by the detection for neutralizing antibodies against a known tick-borne encephalitis strain. Later, they studied the pathomechanism of tick-borne encephalitis by indigenous virus strains in mice and performed adaptation experiments in various cell cultures. The mice pathogenity for strains adapted to cell culture of chicken-embryo was verified.

From the middle of the 1960s, they collaborated on the studies for the native spread of various arboviruses and the role of human pathogen with the WHO Collaborative Centre in the Virological Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Slovakia and with the Research Institute of Forestry. Virus-isolation experiments were performed from ticks, mosquitoes, and blood-samples of small mammals collected in the various areas and forestry of the country. They also examined the antibody-content against arboviruses in the blood samples of humans, cattle, and small mammals. They verified that in addition to the tick-borne encephalitis virus the Tahyna, Uukuniemi, Sindbis, West Nile, Tetnang and Calovo viruses were present and the antibodies against them could be detected in the human blood samples. However, their pathogenic role in human morbidity was not verified. Likewise viruses of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever were isolated from small mammals in Veszprém County, 1972 and the antibodies against them were detected in human sera, too. Though, their etiological role in human cases could not be confirmed. 

In the suspected cases of tick-borne encephalitis she did antibody testing with Dr. Tamara Kubaszova and Dr. Emőke Ferenczi from the 1960s. Initially, virus neutralization and complement fixation tests were used. Then, hemagglutination-inhibition and immune fluorescence assays were applied. The aetiology of tick-borne encephalitis could be verified in 20% of encephalitis cases on the average and in 10% of serous meningitis cases.

Later, she joined the poliovirus testing activity. With the work of Enders, Weller Robbins (Nobel Prize Winners in Physiology or Medicine 1954), in human embryonic tissue cultures 9 poliovirus strains could be isolated in 1954 and 34 strains in 1954.

In the largest poliomyelitis outbreak in Hungary, 1957 the relative low number of tests could clearly verify that the poliovirus type 1 caused the epidemic as well as the 1 830 cases in the outbreak, 1959 that developed despite the immunization with Salk-vaccines. The latter one was characterized together with Dr. István Dömök by the enterovirus testing performed for one-third of the cases. During the year between these two poliomyelitis epidemics, a country-wide Bornholm outbreak occurred and a meningo-encephalomyocarditis outbreak developed with a high mortality rate in two neonatal units that was caused by Coxackievirus B3. With Dr. Ottó Rudnais inclusion (Department of Epidemiology), it was clarified that the favourable poliomyelitis situation in 1958 was due to the Coxackievirus B3 and not to the immunization with Salk-vaccines.

15 books and book chapters and 50 publications (20 in foreign languages, mainly in English), respectively, stand for her scientific activity. Her 100-page monograph titled The tick-borne encephalitis published within the Aesculap-series of Medicina Publishing House has been essential for the experts in this field even nowadays.   

For her scientific activity she received state award in 1983, and the Hungarian Society of Microbiology awarded the Maninger Rezső Medal to her in 1993 for her several-decade generous work.

Her English-, German-, and Russian-language knowledge rendered possible a wide foreign collaboration (with experts and institutes) and her study-trips in many countries (Slovakia, Finland, Czech Republic, and United Kingdom).

Our personal relation started following my employment in OKI, 1979. I got to know a selfless and helpful person who accepted the realities without revolt in all situations. She was happy to share her huge technical experience and wide expertise with her colleagues. During the discussions for her less experienced colleagues drafted experiments, she could answer the emerged issues immediately or gave the quick and appropriate response following a thorough consulting the books. However, she was ready to do the necessary menial tasks without complaint needed to foster the work. She proved it during the measles outbreak in years 1988 and 1989 when she gave a hand to unpack the samples delivered in large number for virus testing to the Department. She was nearly 70 years old when she made mice-autopsy by her own hands for teaching purposes.

Her life-work includes the several tick-borne encephalitis and other virus strains that she isolated during the 20-year focal research of arboviruses. These virus strains and immune sera prepared in the own laboratory have been used by the Department of Viral Diagnostics in the National Centre for Epidemiology up to now. Also the first tick-borne encephalitis virus strain (KEM1) isolated by her in Hungary has been used in the accredited tests.

Modesty combined with wide-scope of knowledge characterized her course of life. Even in her youth, her personality radiated wisdom and refined humour. She was excellent in the harmonization of the care for her family and living for her profession, having of course assistance from her mother and sisters. As a medical student, she pledged herself to microbiology. As an interne, she worked in the Institute of Bacteriology of Pázmány Péter University of Sciences.  There, she met her future husband, Dr. József Sinkovics, with whom she had many joint works until he left for the United States (1956). She gave birth to her twins (Eszter and Géza) in 1955.

She stuck to microbiology for zeal and for love of her profession to the end.

Dr. Emőke Ferenczi

Publications of Dr. Erzsébet Molnár