Medical research scientist known for his work on vaccines and insulin

Born: June 9, 1932;

Died: September 14, 2017

DR STRATHEARN Wilson, who has died in his adopted Canada aged 85, was a medical research scientist and graduate of Glasgow University who spent his career working to protect people from infectious diseases and improving public health through better diagnostics and vaccines. Although he became an expat in Canada, Strath, as he was always known, supported research at the University of Glasgow all his life.

Famously within his field in Canada, he developed sulphated (chemically-altered) insulin to treat diabetics who had developed high resistance to normal insulin "from the bench" (from laboratory research). Dr Wilson did most of his best-known work at the Connaught Medical Research Laboratories in the University of Toronto where he first started in 1958. In 1964, after the shock of the thalidomide disaster which shook up the entire pharmaceutical and biologics industries, he was asked to start up a regulatory affairs department at the university to deal with the thalidomide issue and its after-effects.

From the late 1980s through the 1990s, Dr Wilson was also involved in research into a new pressing issue - HIV Aids. He worked on a diagnostics for HIV as well as a potential vaccine but it was early days and, like his peers, his work did not produce the still-dreamed-of success.

He was most proud of his work on a Hepatitis B antigen kit which made its way "from bench" (the lab) to licensing in the U.S. in an unusually-rapid three years, selling up to four million tests annually.

In the years before his 1997 retirement, he specialized in vaccines, formulating the stabilizer now used for the liquid oral polio vaccine. He also improved freeze-drying methods for measles and polio vaccines to improve their stability at 37 degrees centigrade and he worked successfully on vaccines for whooping cough.

The son of school-teacher parents, Dr Wilson believed passionately in education and infrastructure for universities as well as commercial companies. Although an expat - he retained his UK passport while adding Canadian citizenship when he was 70 - he was a staunch supporter of the University of Glasgow's chemistry department via the Chancellor’s Fund and the university’s Beatson Pebble Appeal to help build the first cancer research facility in Scotland dedicated to translational research; this linked the work of the bench scientists in the lab to that of the hands-on clinician in the hospital.

After his BSc in chemistry at Glasgow (1953), he considered working as farm manager on his uncle Jimmy's 1,800-acre potato farm outside Birmingham but instead was persuaded by his beloved Glasgow University mentor Dr G D Buchanan to take up graduate studies, which he did, at the University of Birmingham, where he got his Ph.D. and decided his career would be in chemistry and medical research.

Strathearn Wilson was born in Patna, Ayrshire, on June 9, 1932, the youngest of three sons of Midlothian-born David Wilson, headmaster of the Kerse School in Patna, and his wife Jane (née Purdie), who also taught at the little school by the local waterworks between two old coal and iron-mining villages. It was there that the Bard Rabbie Burns wrote "Ye banks and braes o'bonnie Doon" and Strath Wilson remained a Burns lover throughout his life, often singing that very song.

At his dad's school, young Strath showed a love for chemistry - and mischief-making - sneaking into his father's school lab to create "very loud explosions." Going on to Ayr Academy (1943-49), he developed a love of the violin, of singing (he credited his music teacher Edward Glover for his love of music) and of stage-managing school plays and operas (including The Mikado).

He also served in the Air Cadets, the Air Training Corps youth organisation sponsored by the Ministry of Defence and the Royal Air Force, which added to his love of the outdoors. He became a fly fisherman, rambler, mountain cyclist, photographer (developing his own film), long-distance swimmer, sea kayaker and passionate tennis player, playing most evenings until night fell. He once cycled solo from Birmingham to Scotland, typically with an unscheduled stopover in Ireland.

While at Ayr Academy, aged 14, he broke both his ankles in a high vault gymnastic somersault and would go on to break other bones in Canada as a cyclist or downhill skier but he never stayed down for long. He met his wife Anne (née Yuill, a half-English Canadian X-ray technician) on a bus to the ski slopes and their daughters learnt to ski as soon as they could walk. Even in retirement, he skied at least 100 days of the year at the Blue Mountain Resort in Ontario where he became a popular figure with his charm, humour and unmistakeable skiing style. Two of his daughters became ski instructors and Dr Wilson was for many years a volunteer ski coach for disabled children as part of Special Olympics Ontario (SOO).

In his early days as a medical research scientist, Dr Wilson loved singing in his spare time as a member of the Canadian Opera Chorus, his rich baritone being so good that he had to make a big decision - singing or science. He opted for the latter but his children say he continued to sing in amateur theatre, in his basement, in his garage, at Christmas, birthdays or other family events, even in the countryside, thinking no-one could hear. They often did - whether it be opera, Paul Robeson spirituals or Bonnie Doon.

Dr Strathearn Wilson is survived by his wife of 58 years, Anne, his daughters Julia and Morag and their husbands, his grandson Ewan (all of them in Canada), and his brother David in Worcestershire. He was pre-deceased by his middle daughter Sheena, nicknamed Smiley, and his brother John. He also has extended family in Ayrshire, England and Australia.

PHIL DAVISON