John Balinsky was born Ivan Boris Balinsky July 4, 1934 in Kiev, Ukraine to Boris and Katya (Syngayevskaya) Balinsky. Boris, a renowned embryologist, and his family survived the Stalinist purges of 1937, however they were displaced by the destruction of World War II. Katya died peritonitis in 1943 and soon after Boris, John, and Vania (Boris’s mother) left the Soviet Union. After several moves and the end of the war, Boris accepted a position as Professor (1945-1947) of Histology in the temporary university established in Munich by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration for displaced persons. After the temporary university was closed, he obtained a position (1947-1949) at the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh. In 1949, Boris then went to the University of Witwaterstand Johannesburg, South Africa as a lecturer and was soon promoted to Chair (1954-1973) of the Zoology Department. Boris died in 1997.



Further information regarding Boris Balinsky can be found at the University of Illinois Archives Web site, which has his memoir that has been made available as a PDF file /web.library.uiuc.edu/ahx/ead/ua/1535057/1535057f.html>.



John Balinsky received his matriculation certificate (1951) from St. John’s College in Johannesburg, South Africa; a B.Sc. (1955) In Zoology and Chemistry with honors from the University of Witwaterstand Johannesburg, South Africa; and a Ph.D. (1959) in biochemistry from the University of London, England.



Dr. Balinsky served on the faculty of the University Witwatersrand where he was an assistant professor (1960-1964), associate professor (1965-68), reader (1969-1974) and professor (1974-1976). He was also a visiting professor (1975-1976) at Columbia University in New York. He came to Iowa State University as the chairman (1976-1983) of the Department of Zoology where he served until his death.



Dr. Balinsky’s main area of research included regulation of cell adaptation to environment and in development. He authored 47 publications including a chapter in a book on “Comparative Biochemistry of Nitrogen Metabolism”. He received numerous awards which include the Witwatersrand Council of Education Overseas Scholarship (1956), the Nuffield Foundation Dominion Traveling Fellowship (1962), the Carnegie Corporation Travel Grant (1967), the U. S. National Institutes of Health International Fellowship (1968), the South African Council for the scientific and Industrial Research Senior Bursary (1975), and the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust University Traveling Fellowship (1975).



Dr. Balinsky belonged to several professional organizations including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Biochemical Society, United Kingdom, Royal Society of South Africa; Physiological Society of Southern Africa; and the Society for Endocrinology, Metabolism and Diabetes of Southern Africa. He was the vice chairman (1974- 1975) for the South African Biochemical Society and the chairman (1973-1974) of the Society for Experimental Biology, Transvaal.



John Boris Balinsky passed away on October 1, 1983.