Albert Baird Hastings

Albert Baird Hastings (November 20, 1895 – September 24, 1987) was an American biochemist and physiologist. He spent 28 years as the department chair and Hamilton Kuhn Professor of Biological Chemistry at Harvard University. After retiring from Harvard, Hastings moved to the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation (now the Scripps Research Institute), where he became the director of the division of biochemistry and helped to establish the institution's emerging program in basic research. In 1966, he became one of the first faculty members at the University of California, San Diego's new medical school. His research focused on the biochemical underpinnings of physiology and included characterizing acid-base homeostasis in blood and pioneering the use of radioactive tracers for studying metabolism. Hastings received a number of honors and awards for his work, including election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1937 and the President's Medal for Merit in 1948 following his wartime service on the Committee for Medical Research. Hastings died of heart failure in 1987 at age 91.^[1][2][3]