Ken Bott, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and Immunology, died on Friday, January 24, 2020 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 83.
Ken Bott, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology and Immunology, died on Friday, January 24, 2020 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 83.
Ken Bott received his PhD from Syracuse University in 1963, and he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago, then Instructor and Assistant Professor. Bott was recruited to UNC in 1971 as part of an initiative to build a strong bacteriology program, and he continued his research on the genetics of sporulation of B. subtilis. He later turned to studies of Mycoplasma species, which led to an early 1990s collaboration with Clyde Hutchison to sequence the genome of Mycoplasma genitalium, considered to have the minimal genome for a free-living organism.
Bott was the first Director of Graduate Studies of M&I, and later he served as Director of the Curriculum in Genetics. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1982, which he spent at the CNRS, Gif sur Yvette, France. Ken was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 1999. He was particularly proud of his UNC graduate students and postdocs who later established their own careers in academic research.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 1st, 2:00 pm at Yates Baptist Church , 2819 Chapel Hill Road, Durham, NC 27707. There will be a reception afterwards for everyone to visit with the family.