THESE TWO HAVE REAL CHEMISTRY
Father and son scientists to reunite at U of A for prestigious medical symposium
There aren’t many father-son duos in the Order of Canada. There is Paul Martin, the former prime minister, and his father, Paul Martin Sr. And there is Wayne Gretzky, and his father, Walter Gretzky.
And there is Lewis Kay, 56, and his father, Cyril Kay, 86, two research scientists who’ve spent remarkable careers studying proteins, the building blocks of life.
Cyril Kay is professor emeritus of biochemistry at the University of Alberta, and the former vice-president of research at the Alberta Cancer Board.
Lewis Kay, who took his first degree at the U of A, is now a professor at the University of Toronto cross-appointed to the departments of chemistry, biochemistry and molecular genetics. He’s also a senior scientist at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children.
Outside of academia, the Kays aren’t quite as famous as the Gretzkys. But in the realm of biochemistry, they’re at the top of the heap.
Now, Lewis Kay is back visiting the U of A as a Canada Gairdner International Award laureate. The Gairdner — Canada’s most prestigious prize for medical science, awarded to top biomedical researchers around the world — is often a predictor of future Nobel Prizes.
The son will be delivering his Gairdner lecture at the U of A on Monday as part of the Minds that Matter Gairdner Symposium. His dad couldn’t be more proud. “I didn’t push him into biochemistry. But I was very happy he decided on this sort of career. He is a far more original thinker than I am. There isn’t a single problem he tackles that is trivial.”
“I never really liked biology, to be honest,” said Lewis Kay. “Too much memorization!”
He calls himself a biophysicist, and he’s pioneered the use of nuclear resonance imaging to peer deep inside the protein molecules his dad studied from the outside.
“It’s a bit like an MRI, but I don’t look at knees. I look at little protein molecules made out of atoms.”
It’s all a long way from where the Kay dynasty began.
Cyril Kay grew up in Calgary, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His father made a modest living, selling fruit at Calgary’s old City Hall market. But he died young, and Cyril Kay never thought he’d be able to afford university. Luckily, he won a scholarship that paid for four years at McGill. After a PhD at Harvard and post-doctoral work at Cambridge, he was lured home to the U of A in 1958.
“At that time, the University of Alberta was a very good teaching university, but there was very little research going on. My cousin, Sid, who was an organic chemist in the United States, told me not to go back. ‘You’re going to be scientifically dead, he said.’ “
Cousin Sid was quite wrong. Cyril Kay became a core member of an extraordinary chemistry research department. He went on to become one of Canada’s leading protein biochemists, authoring hundreds of articles, winning major awards and cofounding Canada’s first Medical Research Council team, which studied protein structure and function. After retiring from the U of A, he became vice-president of research for the Alberta Cancer Board.
Lewis Kay, by contrast, grew up around labs and scientists. He was a wunderkind. The Edmonton Journal wrote its first story about him when he was Edmonton’s top high school student. He published papers in international science journals while still an undergrad.
“I would bombard professors with questions after lectures. I would ask the people who were a year ahead of me in physics, ‘ What were the hardest, most challenging courses you had?’ And then I would take them.”
He went on to a PhD at Yale and post-doctoral work at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., before joining the U of T.
It’s possible Lewis Kay’s groundbreaking research into the way protein molecules misfold could lead to treatments for neurodegenerative diseases such as ALS, mad cow disease or Alzheimer’s. But for him, the excitement of discovery research is that you don’t know what you’ll find.
“I’m not afraid of failure. You go in so many zigs and zags. That’s what science is. You never go straight.”
What both Kays do worry about is lack of funding for pure, discovery research. Too often, they say, politicians want to fund research that provides tangible, marketable results within an election cycle, not long-term research that takes risks.
“Discovery research is the basis
I didn’t push him into biochemistry. But I was very happy he decided on this sort of career.
for any economic benefits,” said Cyril Kay.
“In some cases, it can make a very substantive difference. But you never know,” said Lewis Kay. “But I think we, as scientists, have to do a better job of conveying that science is important.”