| Class of 1968 |
| "Research Biologist" |
| David O. Wood |
David O. Wood was an honor graduate of the class of 1968. His family was well known on campus as
his father and mother, Richard and Jeanette Wood, ran food services for the college and the
academy. After his four years at the academy, David graduated from Berry College in 1972.
Today, David is a professor of microbiology at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. He 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 is a current
MERIT award recipient from the National Institutes of Health. He has served as President of the
Southeastern Branch of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society for
Rickettsiology. Dr. Wood has served as a member of the Bacteriology and Mycology Study Section of
the National Institutes of Health.
His professional research has been 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.
Editors Note: If you understood what was in that last paragraph, then you must be a Ph.D. in microbiology, too. If not,
then you ought to be!
his father and mother, Richard and Jeanette Wood, ran food services for the college and the
academy. After his four years at the academy, David graduated from Berry College in 1972.
Today, David is a professor of microbiology at the University of South Alabama in Mobile. He 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 is a current
MERIT award recipient from the National Institutes of Health. He has served as President of the
Southeastern Branch of the American Society for Microbiology and the American Society for
Rickettsiology. Dr. Wood has served as a member of the Bacteriology and Mycology Study Section of
the National Institutes of Health.
His professional research has been 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.
Editors Note: If you understood what was in that last paragraph, then you must be a Ph.D. in microbiology, too. If not,
then you ought to be!
