Meet our Alumni

Recognised as the founding father of clinical research in Australia, Sir Ian Wood was also responsible for the establishment of blood banking in Australia.

Wood graduated in medicine from The University of Melbourne in 1927. He then worked as a paediatrician at London's Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital and Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital. An Honorary Physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and an Elsie Marion Carty Fellow, Wood became an international leader in research into liver disease.

In 1935 he was appointed Assistant Director to Sir MacFarlane Burnet at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, a position he was to hold for most of the next 30 years.

In the 1930s he played a central role in developing massive blood transfusion and blood banking in Australia. He also developed blood banking for the Australian Armed Forces during the Second World War. Wood served in the Middle East at the rank of Major and in 1942 was honoured as a Member of the Order of the British Empire for his distinguished service. He then commanded an Army General Hospital in New Guinea.

After the war he headed the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Clinical Research Unit until 1963 and was consulting physician to the Hospital until 1978.

A prolific author of research papers in eminent medical journals, Wood was honoured as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He received a knighthood for his services to medicine in 1976.