Joel Mandelstam FRS (13 November 1919 – 20 December 2008) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

microbiologist, a

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

, at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, and a Fellow of

Linacre College, Oxford Linacre College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the UK whose members comprise approximately 50 fellows and 550 postgraduate students. Linacre is a diverse college in terms of both the international composition of its me ...

. He was a pioneer in using

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

to study fundamental biological phenomena — such as

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, differentiation, and the turnover of

macromolecules A macromolecule is a very large molecule important to biophysical processes, such as a protein or nucleic acid. It is composed of thousands of covalently bonded atoms. Many macromolecules are polymers of smaller molecules called monomers. The ...

— which had more usually been investigated in higher organisms.Joel Mandelstam. 13 November 1919 — 20 December 2008
Abstract, Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. Accessed 20 May 2014. Born in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...

, and educated at the

Jeppe High School for Boys Jeppe High School for Boys is a public English medium high school for boys located in Kensington, a suburb of Johannesburg in the Gauteng province of South Africa, one of the 23 Milner Schools and also one of the top schools in the Gauteng p ...

, his parents were

Lithuanian Jews Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks () are Jews with roots in the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania (covering present-day Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, the northeastern Suwałki and Białystok regions of Poland, as well as adjacent areas ...

.The Joel Mandelstam Lectures

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Accessed 21 February 2013. He attended the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), is a multi-campus South African Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg. It is more commonly known as Wits University or Wits ( o ...

, where he read for an

honours Honour (British English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is the idea of a bond between an individual and a society as a quality of a person that is both of social teaching and of personal ethos, that manifests itself as a ...

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degree. After graduating in 1942, he worked as a research assistant at the Medical school in Johannesburg. Amongst others, he taught

Sydney Brenner Sydney Brenner (13 January 1927 – 5 April 2019) was a South African biologist. In 2002, he shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with H. Robert Horvitz and Sir John E. Sulston. Brenner made significant contributions to work ...

there. He came to London in 1947 to work for a PhD under

John Yudkin John Yudkin Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, FRSC (8 August 1910 – 12 July 1995) was a British physiology, physiologist and nutritional science, nutritionist, and the founding Professor of the Department of Nutrition at Queen Elizabe ...

at King's College of Household and Social Science in London (which became

Queen Elizabeth College Queen Elizabeth College (QEC) was a college in London. It had its origins in the Ladies' (later Women's) Department of King's College, London, England, opened in 1885 but later accepted men as well. The first King's 'extension' lectures for l ...

in 1953). From 1966 until his retirement in 1987 he was ''Iveagh Professor of Chemical Microbiology'' at the University of Oxford, where he built up a highly successful research group studying spore formation in bacteria.

Positions held

* Research Assistant,

Medical school, 1943–1947 * Lecturer,

, London, 1947–51 * Scientific Staff,

National Institute for Medical Research The National Institute for Medical Research (commonly abbreviated to NIMR), was a medical research institute based in Mill Hill, on the outskirts of north London, England. It was funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC); In 2016, the NIMR b ...

, 1952–66 * Iveagh Professor of Microbiology, and Fellow of Linacre College, University of Oxford, 1966–87 * Departmental Demonstrator, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford, 1987–90 *

Fulbright Fellow The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, US, 1958–59 * Visiting Professor,

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide (informally Adelaide University) is a public research university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. The university's main campus is located on N ...

, 1971

References

1919 births British biologists Fellows of Linacre College, Oxford Fellows of the Royal Society British Jews Jewish scientists 2008 deaths University of the Witwatersrand alumni University of the Witwatersrand academics People associated with Queen Elizabeth College South African Jews South African people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent 20th-century biologists {{UK-biologist-stub