Kushak Rafail (1941)

Kushak Rafail (1941, Kozmodemyansk, Mari Republic) ― biochemist, physiologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences.

Rafail Kushak was born during evacuation. After the war, his family returned to Latvia. In 1963, he graduated from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Latvia, defended his candidate's thesis in 1968, and his doctoral thesis in 1992 at the Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry in St. Petersburg. He was a student of Academician A. M. Ugoliev, an outstanding physiologist and author of the theory of membrane digestion. He worked as a junior, senior and leading researcher at the Institute of Biology of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. He has been awarded several prizes by the Latvian Academy of Sciences.

In 1990, Rafail Kushak emigrated to the United States, where he continued his research work at Harvard Medical School (Boston, professor since 1993). His main works are in the field of membrane digestion and absorption, nutrient interactions, biological problems of creating artificial food, and tissue-factor blood coagulation; applied research on the development and implementation of the fish protein concentrate ‘Suberkon’ for feeding farm animals in Latvia; clinical research in the field of gastroenterology in children suffering from autism, autoimmune enteropathy, and haemolytic uraemic syndrome in the USA. He headed the laboratory of paediatric gastroenterology and nutrition. He received numerous USSR author's certificates and US patents, and is the author of numerous articles in leading American and international publications.

Works: The digestive and transport system of enterocytes (Пищеварительно-транспортная система энтероцитов). Riga: Zinatne. 1983