About John Woodland Hastings
John Woodland "Woody" Hastings, (March 24, 1927 – August 6, 2014) was a leader in the field of photobiology, especially bioluminescence, and was one of the founders of the field of circadian biology (the study of circadian rhythms, or the sleep-wake cycle). He was the Paul C. Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He published over 400 papers and co-edited three books. Hastings research on bioluminescence principally focused on bacterial luminescence (over 150 papers) and dinoflagellates (over 80 papers). In addition to bacteria and dinoflagellates, he, with his students and colleagues, also published papers on the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of light production in fungi, cnidarians, ctenophores, polychaetes, insects (fireflies and dipterans), ostracod crustaceans, millipedes, tunicates, and fishes with bacterial light organs. His laboratory produced the first evidence for quorum sensing in bacteria, early evidence of the molecular mechanisms of circadian clock regulation in organisms (first using dinoflagellate luminescence and then expanded to other cellular proteins), and some of the initial studies of energy transfer in green fluorescent proteins (GFP) in cnidarian luminescence. == Early life == Hastings lived in Seaford, Delaware, during his early childhood; in 1937, he joined the choir at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and attended the choir's in-house boarding school, visiting his family during vacations. Hastings moved to Lenox School in Lenox, Massachusetts, in 1941 to complete his secondary education and was interested in literature, physics, mathematics, ice hockey and basketball. == Awards and honors == Throughout his career Hastings received numerous awards and honors: Guggenheim Fellow, 1965; Elected to the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars, 1969; Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1972; NATO Senior Fellow in Science, Foundation Curie, Orsay, France, 1977; Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Bonn, Germany 1979-80 and 1993; Yamada Foundation Fellow, Osaka, Japan, 1986; NIMH Merit Award, 1990 and 1994; Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, 2003; American Society for Photobiology Lifetime Achievement Award, 2003; Elected to the National Academy of Sciences, 2003; Recipient of the Farrell Prize in Sleep Medicine for his contributions to and for founding the field of circadian rhythms, 2006.
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