Fran Bubanović: The Visionary of Medical Chemistry and Biochemistry in Croatia

Professor Fran Bubanović was the founder of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at School of Medicine established a hundred years ago, in 1917, within the University of Zagreb. Fran Bubanović was an exemplary scientist, great science communicator and teacher. He trained many generations of physicians in chemistry and biochemistry. The aim of this essay is to give insight into his scientific collaboration with the Nobel Prize winner Svante Arrhenius and other world-renowned scientists, his teaching work in chemistry, his university textbooks in the field of medical chemistry and biochemistry since he had a profound impact on education of medical students in basic science. We hope that this essay will bring an additional dimension of Fran Bubanović as a superb university teacher and scientist whose legacy still remains unequalled. Therefore, he is legitimately called “the father of medical chemistry” in Croatia.