Dr. Dan Sudia, 88, an unsung CDC hero
Dr. Dan Sudia was a serious scientist with an encyclopedic command of viruses, insects and birds, but he also had a touch of whimsy.
When he identified a new strain of mosquito in the course of his research into an outbreak of Venezuelan equine encephalitis in 1971, he named the creature Culex Cedeci in honor of his employer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In the view of Dr. Goro Kono of Fort Collins, Colo., a retired CDC researcher, the dedication and meticulous work of Dr. Sudia should be better appreciated by the current generation of scientists.
"Had he not isolated so many strains of viruses, molecular biologists today could not have made so much fascinating discoveries about the secrets of those viruses," he said. "Each isolation from Dr. Sudia's field collection must have taken a lot of attention and been an arduous task, the significance and value of which most molecular biologists today do not understand."
Dr. David Sencer of Decatur, a former director of the CDC, counts Dr. Sudia as one of the agency's unsung heroes.
"Not only did he have a leading role in the development of the CDC's light trap for catching mosquitoes, a research tool that's used around the world, he was among the first researchers to connect virology, entomology and ornithology in the study of diseases. That's a fascinating cycle."
Prior to the introduction of the CDC's light trap, collecting live mosquitoes for research was a very crude process -- for instance, using a turkey baster to pick them up. The CDC light trap was easy to set up and repair in the field, and it weighed only 1.75 pounds, so a researcher could carry a dozen at a time.
"Dan had the idea to attach dry ice to the trap, which dramatically increased the number of mosquitoes caught, since they are attracted to carbon dioxide," said a retired CDC colleague, Dr. Charles Calisher of Red Feather Lakes, Colo.
"With 20 or so traps set in an area, you might capture tens of thousands of mosquitoes in a single night," he added. "The bigger the sample, the better the analysis."
Dr. Roy Chamberlain of Atlanta, retired former head of the CDC's virology department and a collaborator in the development of the CDC's light trap, said, "Dan was my top assistant, but I'm proud to say we were more like co-workers.
"Together, we determined how and what kind of diseases that mosquitoes transmitted to humans and animals -- something that hadn't been explored before," he said. "It simply wasn't understood which mosquitoes carried the viruses for Western encephalitis, Eastern encephalitis, Venezuelan equine encephalitis and so on."
Dr. William Daniel Sudia, 88, died Saturday at his Decatur home of lung cancer. His graveside service is 11 a.m. Thursday at Floral Hills Memory Gardens. A.S. Turner & Sons funeral home is in charge of arrangements.
With all the traipsing Dr. Sudia did through swamps, woods and deserts, he became deeply interested in birds, as subjects for research on disease but also for their aesthetic qualities.
Over the years, he took thousands of bird photos, a selection of which can be seen at a Georgia Museum of Natural History website (http://naturalhistory.uga.edu/content/exhibits/birds/birdindex.html). His photos are still in demand, said a daughter, Shawn Skehan of Lilburn, for use in publications and on T-shirts, tote bags and aprons.
Before and after his retirement from the CDC in 1984, he always had some creative project going, said Mrs. Skehan. When a friend gave him a load of walnut planks in the 1950s, he took up woodworking as lifetime pursuit, fashioning furniture -- tables, chairs, bookcases -- for his household and later for members of his family. He did the same with stained-glass lamps, Mrs. Skehan said, getting good enough with that medium to be commissioned to do a window for a North Georgia church.
Survivors also include another daughter, Shelly Spahr of Atlanta; a brother and a sister, Dr. Theodore Sudia and Dorothy Evancho, both of Pittsburgh; and a grandson.
