He was born in Moscow in 1887 and his family returned to Warsaw early in his youth.[4] He did not attend school until age ten due to ill health and asthma. Only seven years later, in 1904, he enrolled in the University of Liège. He later studied at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and became a British citizen.
He made extensive contributions to entomology and parasitology during his career. He published thirty-nine papers between 1914 and 1923 on the reproduction of lice, the life-cycle of the horse bot-fly, the respiratory adaptations in fly larvae, and other subjects.
He is most known for his research and rediscovery of cytochrome[5] in the 1920s (he invented the name). It had been discovered by C. A. MacMunn in 1884, but that discovery had been forgotten or misunderstood.[6]
The Keilin Memorial Lecture[7] of the Biochemical Society began in 1964 in his memory, and recipients and the subject of their talk is selected by a committee reflecting Keilin's interests in bioenergetics, electron transfer and mitochondrial biology. A medal with his profile, a financial award and an opportunity for research publication is also awarded. In 2020, the recipient was the University of Cambridge's Prof Judy Hirst.[8]
^Ferguson, S. J. (2001). "Keilin's Cytochromes: How Bacteria Use Them, Vary Them and Make Them". Biochemical Society Transactions. 29 (6): 629–640. doi:10.1042/bst0290629.
^Hartree, E. F. (1 October 1973). "The discovery of cytochrome". Biochemical Education. 1 (4): 69–71. doi:10.1016/0307-4412(73)90074-5.
