J. Woodland Hastings, who had been a prominent professor in Harvard’s department of molecular and cellular biology, died Aug. 6, 2014, of pulmonary fibrosis. He was 87.
Hastings graduated from Swarthmore in 1947 and earned a Ph.D. in biology from Princeton in 1951. He joined the Northwestern faculty in 1953, moving to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1957, and then to Harvard in 1966.
He was known for his discovery of quorum sensing in bacteria, and he was the first to identify the role of energy transfer from light-emitting luciferase to florescent proteins. He was also a major contributor to understanding how the biological clock works in jet lag. His lab was known for being inclusive, with a free exchange of ideas.
Author of more than 430 peer-reviewed articles, Hastings was a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. His long relationship with the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory began as a graduate student; he later served as a trustee.
Hastings’ wife, Hanna, predeceased him in 2009. He is survived by four children (including Jennifer ’77 and David ’79); five grandchildren; and his companion, Barbara Cheresh.
Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.