LONDON SCHOOL OF HYGIENE & TROPICAL MEDICINEJohn “Jack” Woodall, an infectious disease expert and cofounder of the Program for Monitoring Infectious Diseases (ProMED), died Monday (October 24). He was 81.
“He became an expert in infectious diseases and built this terrific thing, which is ProMED,” said Ivan Oransky, former deputy editor of The Scientist who commissioned Woodall’s monthly column in the magazine from 2006 to 2007. “He was the rare person who did two very difficult things extremely well and still managed to be a positive and encouraging force in the world.”
Woodall’s posts in heading up infectious disease laboratories took him around the globe—from the Rockefeller Foundation Virus Laboratory in Brazil, to the New York State Department of Health, to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s labs in Puerto Rico. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Woodall worked for the World Health Organization and its AIDS program.
“Jack really believed in emerging ...
