Artur Jurand

Artur Jurand FRSE (1914–2000) was a Polish-born animal geneticist who did important work at Edinburgh University in the later 20th century. He Anglicised his name to Arthur Jurand once settled in Scotland.

Life

He was born Artur Jurand on 30 March 1914 in Silesia (what is today part of Poland). He studied Science at the University of Krakow gaining first a BSc then an MSc. As a postgraduate he received his first doctorate (PhD).

In the Second World War he was imprisoned in a concentration camp in Poland. After the war he worked at the Medical Academy in Krakow and from 1956 to 1959 he served as Rector of a college in Krakow.

In 1961 he moved to Scotland and in particular to Edinburgh University, where he received a further doctorate (DSc). He specialised in genetic abnormalities and began lecturing in Teratology in 1963. He later was appointed Senior Lecturer in Animal Genetics and helped to establish the Institute of Animal Genetics.^[1] In Edinburgh University he worked alongside Charlotte Auerbach and Francis Albert Eley Crew at the Ashworth Buildings.^[2] Together they paved the way for animal cloning and the Dolly the Sheep project.^[3]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1970. His proposers were Geoffrey Beale, Conrad Hal Waddington, Alan Robertson and Alan William Greenwood.^[4]

He retired in 1991 and died on 13 January 2000. He is buried in the modern extension to Dean Cemetery in the west of Edinburgh]].^[5]

Publications

• The Anatomy of Paramecium Aurelia (1969)
• Paramecium: Genetics and Epigenetics, co-written with Geoffrey Beale

Family

His daughter, Maria K Jurand, followed in her father’s footsteps, studying genetics at Edinburgh University and also gaining a doctorate.

References