David O. Wood, PhD
Biography
Dr. David O. Wood, Professor, received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the Medical College of Georgia in 1978. He performed his postdoctoral study at the Medical College of Virginia, Virginia Commonwealth University. Dr. David Wood has been honored with a Research Career Development Award and a MERIT award from the National Institutes of Health. He served as President of the Southeastern Branch of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society for Rickettsiology. Dr. Wood also served as a member of the Bacteriology and Mycology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. He retired after thirty years of service to the university, having served as both Chair of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology and as Director of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases (LID) during his tenure.
Research
Dr. Wood's research focused on the obligate intracellular parasitic bacterium, Rickettsia prowazekii. This organism is the etiologic agent of epidemic typhus. Other members of this genus are the agents responsible for Rocky Mountain spotted fever and scrub typhus. How R. prowazekii exploits the intracellular environment was the primary focus of the laboratory. This included the development of genetic tools and protocols for examining rickettsial gene function that would used around the world.
Publications
Genetic Analysis of Rickettsia