John Woodland Hastings

Who is John Woodland Hastings?

John Woodland "Woody" Hastings, PhD., born March 24, 1927 in Maryland, is a leader in the field of photobiology, especially bioluminescence, and is one of the founders of the field of circadian biology. He is the Paul C. Mangelsdorf Professor of Natural Sciences and Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He has published over 400 papers and co-edited three books.

Hastings research on bioluminescence has principally focused on bacterial luminescence and dinoflagellates. In addition to bacteria and dinoflagellates, he, with his students and colleagues, has published papers on the biochemical and molecular mechanisms of light production in fungi, cnidarians, ctenophores, polychaetes, insects, 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, and some of the initial studies of energy transfer in green fluorescent proteins in cnidarian luminescence.