USIDNET/ IDF/ NIAID Mourns Pediatrician, Immunologist Josiah F. Wedgwood
Dec / 17 / 2009 -
USIDNET/ IDF/ NIAID Mourns Pediatrician, Immunologist Josiah F. Wedgwood
He passed away on November 27, 2009....
USIDNET/ IDF/ NIAID staffs were extremely saddened to receive news of the sudden death of their friend and colleague Josiah F. Wedgwood. He passed away of undetermined cause on November 27 while traveling overseas with his son to meet his wife in Paris. Wedgwood was 59.
Wedgwood joined NIAID in 2002 as the chief of the Immunodeficiency and Immunopathology Section in the Clinical Immunology Branch of the Division of Allergy, Immunology and Transplantation (DAIT). While there, he oversaw research into the mechanisms and treatment of primary immune deficiency diseases. Wedgwood was instrumental in developing significant research programs in autoimmune diseases to help understand their causes and to develop potential treatments for these devastating diseases.
Wedgwood will be sorely missed by family, friends, and colleagues across the nation. “He was not only a highly skilled clinical trials specialist with extensive expertise in pediatric infectious diseases and immunology,” notes NIAID DAIT Director Daniel Rotrosen, “but he also was a wonderful colleague and a devoted husband and father. Josiah was unfailingly generous with his time, deeply committed to improving the lives of people living with various diseases of the immune system, and a tireless advocate for research into those diseases. His many achievements will be remembered by his colleagues and friends at NIAID and within the scientific and patient communities he served.”
Just prior to joining NIAID, he had held concurrent appointments as Director of Newborn Services at the Hospital of Saint Raphael, New Haven, CT, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics at Yale Medical School, and Attending Neonatologist at Yale/New Haven Hospital.
Wedgwood received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and his M.D. from The George Washington University School of Medicine. He received the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes to support his research to fight immune diseases affecting children. He also provided medical care to patients with pediatric rheumatologic and orthopedic diseases while at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. During his tenure on the faculty of Mount Sinai Medical School, his primary clinical duties included service on the neonatal intensive care unit and research in pediatric immunology.
Wedgwood is survived by his wife, Ruth, and his 11-year-old son, Josiah.