Dr Leslie Owen White

David Reeves

10th January 1947–16th April 2002

As befits its international readership, the Journal rarely, if ever, comments on personal or parochial matters. However, the untimely death of one of its Editors in post is, I believe, more than adequate justification for breaching the rule.

When Les died recently after a short illness all who knew him were deeply shocked. His passing will leave a huge void in his area of expertise in antimicrobial chemotherapy and an equally large personal void for those who knew him. Les had a distinguished career in science. After graduating with First Class honours in Bacteriology from the University of Birmingham, he completed a PhD on the numerical taxonomy of Agrobacterium. He then worked with Professor Harry Smith, leading a group working on the pathogenicity of Aspergillus and the detection of fungal antigens. In 1978 he joined the antimicrobial research group at Southmead Hospital in Bristol. His main task initially was to develop HPLC for the assay of antibiotics, presaging his later distinguished work when, early on, he discovered a hitherto unsuspected inactive metabolite of an antibiotic that was undergoing pharmacokinetic study. This was something of an unpleasant surprise to the company concerned who challenged the findings. Les stuck to his guns and was subsequently proved to be completely correct. This was typical of the exceptional quality of Les’ work and his integrity. Indeed, the outstanding feature of Les’ approach to science that I will remember most was his complete integrity, together with his great intelligence and an ability to approach a problem laterally with a mind uncluttered by preconceptions. He would never let anything that might impinge on the accuracy of results go by without comment or further exploration, and regularly came up with novel ways of solving knotty problems.

Les’ work at Southmead played a large part in the recognition of the centre as a, or perhaps the, reference laboratory in the UK for clinical assays of antimicrobial analytes both rarely and commonly encountered. Faced with a new challenge, Les could quickly develop and quality assure a new assay. He was often the first point of contact and advice for users, really a sort of national ‘Dr Assay’. Many people who knew him through speaking on the telephone also became acquainted with Les in person, benefiting from his teaching at the specialist assay practical courses, with their notorious late night seminars in the bar. Because of his organizational and technical skills I asked him to take over the management of the UK NEQAS antibiotic assay scheme, and he became its Organizer in 1998. His contribution to the scheme was typically enthusiastic, progressive and thorough. He was in 1999 a co-editor and co-author of several chapters in the BSAC’s handbook Clinical Antimicrobial Assays. Besides all this, Les continued to make a substantial contribution to the original research of the department (now called the Bristol Centre for Antibiotic Research and Evaluation) and he has a considerable number of publications to his name concerning a wide range of antimicrobial agents. In 1999 he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists on the basis of his published work.

Les was in his second term as an Editor of the Journal at the time of his death. His wide knowledge of antimicrobial pharmacokinetics, ability to review a paper critically but fairly, and skill at writing and editing will be very hard to replace. He had also served on the Council of the BSAC.

Those who knew Les will doubtless remember his quirky but kindly deadpan humour. His approach was always refreshingly open-minded and without prejudice, as if, as was described at his funeral, he had alighted on the situation like a visitor from another planet. He was warm and supportive to his colleagues, happy to help his juniors and always ready with a joke or an amusing story. It is natural that someone of such remarkable personal qualities will be hugely missed, most of all by his family, and it is to his wife Abigail and their three sons that I extend my personal heartfelt condolences and those of everyone involved with the Journal.





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