Wee Tee, Ph.D., died on 14 August 2000 at the age of 49. Wee was born in Malaysia, one of 10
children in a Malaysian-Chinese family, and came to Australia in 1971 to complete her education.
Her final high school year was spent in a country with a different language and culture, but she
succeeded in gaining entrance to Melbourne University and completed a Bachelor of Science
degree (1972-1976), majoring in microbiology. She was so fascinated by bacteriology that she
wanted to pursue this as a career. The only hospital pathology job she could find was in serology,
and it was two years before she managed to find a microbiology position at Fairfield Infectious
Diseases Hospital. She never looked back, enthusiastically learning as much as possible about
the common and rarer pathogens in a work environment that encouraged research. She became
adept at culturing difficult bacteria, such as Campylobacter, Legionella, and Helicobacter
pylori, and began publishing research papers in 1985. She completed a M.Sc. in 1988 and a
Ph.D. in 1993; her thesis was entitled Typing of Helicobacter pylori). In 1988 Wee was
promoted to Specialist Microbiologist (Development and Research), and Scientist-in-charge of
the Campylobacter Reference Laboratory (now part of the Victorian Infectious Diseases
Reference Laboratory).
She consulted for companies wanting to develop diagnostic kits, joined ASM in 1982, was active
in the local branch of the Australian Society for Microbiology, presented at many national and
overseas conferences, and was a member of the International Committee on Campylobacter
Typing. She collaborated with many laboratories around Australia and overseas.
I knew Wee from our undergraduate years at Melbourne University, and while we had remained
in contact socially since then, from 1988 onwards her research interests brought her into my
laboratory for short periods to sequence 16S rRNA genes from the many interesting bacteria that
came her way. One isolate of Desulfovibrio was given the proposed species name,
"fairfieldensis," referring to the hospital she worked in for many years, and that was recently
closed down. Wee was always enthusiastic about her work, and this was never more evident that
when she was teaching others. I involved her in undergraduate practical classes where her
enthusiasm and experience were highly regarded by the students.
Wee never married, but lived happily in a large suburban house with her two dogs. Her work was
a major part of her life, but she also enjoyed gardening, swimming, watching cricket, and
socializing with her large circle of friends. A lung cancer was discovered late in 1998 (she never
smoked); there followed a succession of traumatic chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments,
along with endless tests and hospitalizations. She bore it all with dignity and perseverance,
striving to live her life to the full, and continuing to work as long as she could. Above all, she
maintained her wonderful sense of humor and her genuine interest in others.
Mike Dyall-Smith
University of Melbourne
Melbourne, Australia
Mike Dyall-Smith, Dec 2000