J o Colston, who has died aged 54, was an internationally acclaimed scientist who devoted most of his career to two diseases, leprosy and tuberculosis, both associated with poverty and caused by closely related mycobacteria.
Among Colston's earliest achievements were the development of methods to determine the number of viable cells of the leprosy bacillus, an uncultivable pathogen, and their susceptibility to drugs. As an adviser to the World Health Organisation (WHO), he was instrumental in devising the multi-drug therapy that has brought leprosy to the verge of elimination. He then turned his attention to tuberculosis, and made seminal contributions to the microbiology, immunology and prevention of the disease while leading the division of mycobacterial research at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in Mill Hill, north London.
Colston was born in Birmingham. Educated at King Edward's School in Aston, he took a degree in microbiology from the then Queen Elizabeth College at London University, and then spent two years at the Central Public Health Laboratories before moving to St George's Hospital Medical School. After six years there, during which time he obtained his PhD, he moved to Stanford Research Institute, California, for four years, before taking over the mycobacterial group at NIMR in 1982.
Colston's appointment at Mill Hill began a shift in interest in the division from leprosy, whose importance as a public health problem had greatly declined as multi-drug therapy was applied widely, to tuberculosis. He was quick to introduce the novel "molecular" techniques which have accelerated understanding of microbial pathogens so much in the last few decades. His policy of welcoming visiting workers to the division, and of accepting as many PhD students as finances would allow, meant that a wide spectrum of topics could be investigated. He was also responsible for a unit for the study and treatment of leprosy in Hyderabad, central India, funded jointly by the MRC and the British Leprosy Relief Association (Lepra), and now known as the Blue Peter Research Centre, thanks to support from the children's television programme.
S hortly after his return from California, Colston began to serve on the medical advisory board of Lepra, and had latterly been chairman. He was a member of a WHO steering committee which developed, tested and implemented the spectacularly successful MDT for leprosy. More recently, he was a consultant for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on the development of a vaccine to overcome the continuing persistence of bovine tuberculosis in Great Britain.
He had been involved in several Indo-British collaborative programmes for research on tuberculosis and was part of a European Union cluster attempting to develop novel vaccines to protect against human tuberculosis. Colston was a frequent and revered visitor at the All India Institute of Medical Science in New Delhi, and undertook numerous successful collaborative projects with the institute.
He was an ideal travelling companion, calmly dealing with every problem. Part of the pleasure was to hear of, and to share, his many interests, of which the primary was perhaps cricket. He frequented the Edgbaston cricket ground from an early age, and was himself an able wicketkeeper.
He was also interested in art, and had some skill as a practitioner. He was closely involved with a project to improve the NIMR with original art works through the loan of pictures and a small Henry Moore statue as well as occasional exhibitions.
Then there were books, plays and films, his house and garden, and, most importantly, his family. He was a constant source of support and encouragement to both young and established scientists from disease-endemic countries, notably India.
He is survived by his wife Kay and two sons.
