Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Quastel, Juda
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Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1899-1987
History
Juda Quastel is remembered for his crucial scientific research contributions in cancer, soil metabolism, cell metabolism, and neurochemistry. Born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England, in 1899, Quastel began his successful career in the life sciences as a lab assistant at the St. Georges Hospital for the British Army from 1917-1919. Quastel studied chemistry at Imperial College London and pursued graduate work at Cambridge University. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1924, followed by a doctorate of science in 1926; additionally, by 1930, Quastel became the Director of Research at Cardiff City Mental Hospital and began to research the metabolism and enzymology of the brain. In 1941 the Agricultural Research Council contacted Quastel to research crop yields because of the deficiencies of food supplies. In 1947, Quastel became Assistant Director of McGill University-Montreal General Hospital Research Institute and professor and then the institute's director in 1948 while supervising 70 Ph.D. candidates. Quastel, although retired, came to UBC in 1966 to become a professor in neurochemistry in the Department of Psychiatry. Over his career, significant honours for Quastel included earning an honorary doctorate of science from McGill University in 1969, receiving the Companionship of the Order of Canada and an honorary doctorate at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1970, as well as becoming an honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1983. Quastel was widowed by his first wife, Henrietta Quastel, in 1973, and he passed away in 1987, leaving behind a second wife, Susan Ricardo, three children Michael, David, Barbara and eleven grandchildren.