Dr. Cyril Kay has spent more than sixty years studying proteins and building the teams that made that research possible in Alberta. In 2021, the Government of Alberta inducted Kay into the Alberta Order of Excellence, recognizing a scientific career that helped make the University of Alberta’s biochemistry department one of the strongest in the country.
A Calgary Childhood Marked by Loss and a Scholarship
Cyril Max Kay was born on October 3, 1931, in Calgary, to parents who had immigrated a decade earlier from what is now Belarus. His father sold produce at Calgary’s old City Hall market to support the family, and when Cyril was 12, his father died. His mother took over the market stall, and with money tight, a university education seemed out of reach until a family friend suggested he apply for McGill University’s new J.W. McConnell scholarship, covering tuition, room and board for four years. Kay was awarded one of only four such scholarships in 1949.
From St. John’s, Quebec, to Cambridge
Kay had wanted to study honours chemistry, but with McGill short on space after an influx of veterans following the Second World War, the program’s first two years were based in St. John’s, Quebec, roughly 70 kilometres from Montreal. He instead chose honours biochemistry, which kept him in Montreal, a decision that changed the direction of his life and introduced him to professors who nurtured a lasting fascination with proteins and enzymes. He met Faye Bloomenthal while home for a summer break, and she later joined him in Boston while he pursued his doctorate at Harvard. The couple married in 1953, and a postdoctoral stint at Cambridge University sparked Kay’s enduring interest in muscle proteins.
Building Canada’s First Protein Research Group
In 1958, the University of Alberta recruited Kay to its Department of Biochemistry, one of only two such academic positions open in Canada at the time. With colleague Dr. Larry Smillie, he co-led the Medical Research Council Group on Protein Structure and Function, the first protein group in Canada. Between 1974 and 1995, the group published more than 1,600 peer-reviewed papers and trained 250 students and postdoctoral fellows, which helped put the University of Alberta’s biochemistry department among the country’s leading programs. In 1990, Kay became a founding member of the Protein Engineering Network of Centres of Excellence, a national research alliance and chaired its Scientific Advisory Board.
A Career That Never Really Slowed
Kay retired as Professor of Biochemistry in 1995 after 37 years at the University of Alberta, but he did not step back. From 1999 to 2008 he served as Vice President of Research for the Alberta Cancer Board, which the government wound down in 2008. He then helped Dianne and Irving Kipnes set up a foundation for lymphedema research and helped establish the Alberta Lymphedema Network. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 1995 and an Officer in 2006. He has published 349 research papers, mainly on muscle and calcium-binding proteins. He and wife Faye have two children, Lisa and Lewis, a biophysicist in his own right, and four grandchildren.
