E.J. Wood 1941–2008. A tribute

On Sunday December 14, 2008, at age 67 Ed Wood was at home alone when a heart attack suddenly and unexpectedly ended his life. The sadness it engendered in those who knew Ed was enormous, but his was a life that was lived to great purpose. Soft-spoken and unassuming, Ed was treasured by many friends and colleagues around the world. He was indefatigable in advancing Biochemical Education as an activity and generously bestowed his friendship on many. In a world of multiple connections between people Ed achieved a surfeit of connections and an enormous return of affection from those he dealt with. Ed had the energy, given to few, to be a conscientious leader, guide, and mentor in all aspects of his personal and professional life. He was always a great correspondent with a sense of humor that illuminated the silliness of the administrative pomp he encountered. His rapidly written, neat handwriting with a slightly backward slope was always a welcome sight on incoming letters. Even in the era of electronic mail Ed would make time to send land-mail that conveyed something special to the recipients. Above all, Ed was truly modest in his manners; a modesty that his colleagues knew overlaid a gifted man of singular intellect. Ed lived to work and worked to live. In retirement his pace hardly altered except for the set-backs of a heart valve operation and removal of a bowel cancer. These medical events interrupted his jet-setting international travel, but Ed was always looking forward to his next engagement and particularly to helping students and young scientists in developing countries. Ed was the most accessible of people and yet intensely private. Few people would know that he played the piano and found relaxation by launching into Bach's Toccata and fugue with gusto. Looking at Ed, the urbane Oxford D.Phil. few would deduce his boyhood times of growing up in modest circumstances in regional England as the son of a mechanical engineer. More people knew that he was partial to relaxing with a good meal accompanied by red wine or his beloved Tetley Beer from his adopted Yorkshire. He was particularly fond of traveling with friends to a small country pub on the Yorkshire Dales, just outside Leeds, to have a few convivial pints of Tetley. He also treasured time with his family and was fortunate to have an extended family holiday in Turkey in 2008 with his wife Helen, two sons, three grandchildren, and other relatives. Many people are woven into the tapestry of Ed's life as intimate friends and collaborators. Angelo Azzi (IUBMB president) observed that Ed “had the talent of making little distinction between work and play, labor and leisure, information and recreation; he was always doing both at the same time, thus working with Ed was light and rewarding, indeed a joy.” There will be acknowledgments of Ed's many associations forthcoming from the University of Leeds and to locate or contribute to those please contact Sue Yeadon in the Dean's Office at Leeds (S.Yeadon@leeds.ac.uk). For Ed's role in biochemical education some landmark associations deserve special mention here. Ed Wood at the FAOBMB conference, Bangkok 2004. Ed traveled to many countries to examine and run workshops. Thailand was a particular favorite with Ed. Ed Wood with a Donald Nicholson animap of ATP synthase. This was one of the many biochemical education tools and activities that Ed promoted through IUBMB booths at international conferences, most recently at the IUBMB meeting in Athens 2008. When Ed joined the Biochemistry Department at the University of Leeds in 1972 Peter Campbell was the Head of Department. Peter was a singular force in establishing a professional approach to biochemical education within the Biochemical Society (UK), FEBS, and the IUB (later IUBMB). Under the auspices of the IUB, Peter launched a newsletter in 1973 that rapidly became the journal Biochemical Education. In 1979, Ed became Editor in Chief of Biochemical Education (now BAMBED) and served in this role for 22 years. For this enormous contribution, Bill Whelan summarized Ed's role aptly as: “He was the Ed in Biochemical Education.” Don and Judy Voet became the Editors in Chief after 2000 and Ed continued as a highly active Associate Editor. Ed was a tireless reader of scientific books and to indicate his enormous capacity to read and pass on his analyses he contributed 43 book reviews to BAMBED in the past 6 years, all of which Don Voet described as insightful and well written. As Ed advanced in his teaching and research career, he won great admiration for his undergraduate lecturing and his postgraduate supervision. He also accommodated many visitors to Leeds, including Graham Parslow coauthor of this tribute, who spent time working with him on sabbatical leave. Ed served as Head of his Department at Leeds from 1991 to 1996 and was awarded a chair in 1998. Ed was a major contributor to the writing of “Standards for the Ph.D. Degree in the Molecular Biosciences” sponsored by the IUBMB and published in two editions (1989 and 2000). His approach was pragmatic, being more concerned with practical ways of improving teaching, rather than a proponent of any particular educational theory. Even so he was well versed in theories of education and used this knowledge for incisive, but always helpful, refereeing of articles submitted to Biochemical Education. Ed's excellent grounding in theory also informed the summaries that he presented as part of talks and discussions at educational conferences and workshops. Serendipitously Frank Vella (coauthor of this tribute) served as the Education Officer of the IUB through the 1980s and a remarkable synergy of purpose took shape whereby numerous countries benefited from biochemical education workshops run by Ed, Frank, and Alan Mehler. Ed visited many countries and maintained his ties with them. The love of traveling stayed with Ed and he was never short of invitations to talk at conferences or to be an external examiner at many universities. His recent roles as chairman of the FEBS Education Group and as editor of the Biosciences Education e-journal (BEE-j) meant that his diary of pending engagements was as full as ever when he left us. Ed was a man for all seasons; scholar, author, teacher, researcher, administrator, and friend. Alan Mehler, Frank Vella, and Ed Wood at a 1992 Biochemical Education workshop in Melbourne, Australia, convened by Graham Parslow (sitting). The information below comes from several sources including a retirement statement prepared by Tony Turner of Leeds University. Professor Wood read Biochemistry at The Queen's College, Oxford, England, and then undertook research for a DPhil at The Nuffield Department of Clinical Biochemistry, Oxford. He became a lecturer in the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology at the University of Malta in 1967 and his sons Benjamin and Dominic were born at this time. From 1972 he was associated with the Department of Biochemistry at The University of Leeds, England. During his career he maintained a research group working initially on invertebrate respiratory proteins and subsequently on the proteins of human skin and their role in skin disease and wound healing. His work in this area had close associations with the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, as well as with clinicians. His research output resulted in the publication of over 100 scientific journal papers. At Leeds University, he served as the first Dean of Teaching and Learning in biological sciences and also chaired the committee that was responsible for the revision of the Leeds Medical Course to bring it into line with the GMC recommendations. Ed maintained a keen interest in the education and training of biologists and medical scientists. He accepted numerous invitations to speak at international meetings and to organize workshops on curriculum reform and innovations in education including problem-based learning and e-learning. In addition to his role as Editor in Chief of Biochemical Education Ed served as Editor in Chief of Clinical Dermatology: Retinoids and other Treatments and served on the editorial boards of other journals. He served as a member of the Committee on Education of the IUBMB, as chairman of the UK Biochemical Society's Education Group, and was a member of the Educational Resources Task Force of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). In 2000 Ed became the Director of the Learning & Teaching Support Network for Bioscience, now the Higher Education Academy Centre for Bioscience. He was a Teaching Quality Assessor who traveled to many of the Biochemistry Departments in England and Scotland, and he participated in similar schemes internationally. Ed was prolific in writing and editing student textbooks starting with Introducing Biochemistry in 1983. A collaboration with Chris Smith (Manchester) in the 1990s saw the creation of a major series of biochemistry texts that built into a comprehensive treatise, published by Chapman Hall UK. The final collaborative book was The Biology of Disease published in 2006 with Nessar Ahmed, Maureen Dawson, and Chris Smith. Ed officially retired from the University of Leeds with the title professor emeritus in 2006.

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