It is very sad for a retired professor to write an obituary for a younger colleague and friend. Andrew Marston studied chemistry at the University College, London University, and obtained the BSc degree in 1975. I met him for the first time in the same year when he joined the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, as a British Council award holder. He was involved in the phytochemistry of gentians and published his first paper with me on flavonoids of Gentiana pyrenaica. He liked to work in the laboratory but enjoyed also field work as he had an excellent knowledge in taxonomy. In fact, we made together a beautiful journey to the French Pyrenees in order to collect the first plant he was working on. This trip was followed later by numerous scientific expeditions all over the world.
After Neuchâtel, Andrew went back to England to complete a PhD thesis at Liverpool University in the field of peptide synthesis, followed by a postdoctoral stay at the German Cancer Research Centre, Heidelberg, Germany, from 1979 to 1983. In October 1983, he joined the Institute of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, to work with me on a Swiss National Science Foundation research project for one year. He was a brilliant young scientist and the initially planned one year stay became a stay of…26 years! Andrew was involved in the isolation of biologically active compounds from plants used in traditional medicine and in the application of new chromatographic techniques for the separation and isolation of plant constituents. He did pioneering work in the field of centrifugal partition chromatography which resulted in the publication of nice research papers and a couple of review articles. He also completed original work in the development of enzyme inhibition tests on TLC plates (TLC bioautography) which is useful for the search of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors from plants (e.g., treatment of Alzheimer’s disease).
For his important contributions in various fields of phytochemistry, in 1994 Andrew received the prestigious Rhône-Poulenc Rorer Award of the Phytochemical Society of Europe. We published together a book on preparative chromatography techniques which was translated into Japanese, Chinese, Indonesian, Farsi and Spanish. He is also co-author of a very complete monograph on saponins. In 1994, my Institute was transferred from Lausanne to Geneva University where Andrew held the position of Maître d’enseignement et de recherche (which corresponds to Senior Lecturer) until my retirement in 2009. When I retired, Andrew decided to look for another position and became Professor of Chemistry at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. He conducted phytochemical investigations on indigenous plants and taught organic chemistry and natural product chemistry.
Andrew was an outstanding phytochemist and his work resulted in the publication of more than 150 research papers and 35 review articles and chapters in books. He presented lectures and oral communications in numerous international symposia. He was also teaching in workshops held in Uruguay, Panama, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Mali. We visited all these countries and many others together. This created strong ties and friendship. Andrew was without any doubt my closest friend as we worked together for a total of 27 years and shared many beautiful things together (visits to Machu Pichu in Peru, Bali Island, Borobudur in Indonesia, Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls, Iguaçu Falls, the Great Wall in China, etc.).
But life can be cruel. Around two years ago, Andrew lost within four months his mother, his father and his wife! He passed away on 26 March 2013 in Bloemfontein after brain surgery to control his Parkinson’s disease which resulted in cerebral bleeding. He was born in Africa (Northern Rhodesia which became Zambia after independance in 1964) and died in Africa. He had always special links to this continent; he was a friend of Africa. The scientific community has lost a great phytochemist who served as Associate Editor for Pharmaceutical Biology until 2012. Everyone will miss Andrew. He was always modest, friendly and helpful. I shall miss a friend whom I considered as my younger brother. My thoughts go to his two sons, Mark and Jonathan, and to his brother Keith.