David F. Clyde, 77; Physician, Researcher Was Malaria Expert

Dr. David Francis Clyde, 77, an internationally known expert on malaria who conducted research in Tanzania and later worked on key malarial vaccine studies, died of pancreatic cancer Nov. 12 in Baltimore.

Born in Meruit, India -- the son of a doctor -- Clyde studied in England as a child and, after the outbreak of World War II, in Kansas City, Kan.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Kansas and a medical degree from McGill University in Canada.

Clyde went to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) in the mid-1950s for the British Colonial Medical Service as clinician, malariologist, epidemiologist and deputy surgeon general.

There he saw the devastating effects of malaria and became convinced of the need for a vaccine.

His research led to a doctorate in parasitology from the University of London.

In 1966, Clyde moved to the University of Maryland School of Medicine to work on preventing malaria.

He spent 1975-79 as director of the department of tropical medicine at Louisiana State University School of Medicine.

In 1979, Clyde served as head of the World Health Organization’s Southeast Asia Division based in Delhi, India.

Clyde returned to Baltimore to teach at Johns Hopkins University and, until 1992, he chaired malaria studies at the University of Maryland.