In Memoriam: Malcolm Guy 1944-2020

It is with deep sadness that RSTMH has learned of the death of Malcolm Guy, RSTMH Fellow since 1978, editor of the RSTMH Newsletter in the early 1990s and member of the Council of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from 1984-1987 and again between 1995-1998.

Born in January 1944, Malcolm Warwick Guy started his career in parasitology as a Junior Lab Technician at LSHMT at the age of 19. He gained experience working on trypanosomiasis with the late Dr Ronnie Heisch, in Nigeria in 1969. With Professor Bob Killick Kendrick he was an integral part of the large team which in the 1970s made the annual pilgrimage to the south of France to work on Leishmaniasis and sandflies with the team from Montpellier under Professor Rioux.

He was appointed a Fellow of the Institute of Science Technology in 1977 and was involved in the ground-breaking studies which discovered the existence of hypnozoites of primate Plasmodium malaria with Garnham, Bray and Krotoski, paving the way for studies which confirmed the existence of P. vivax malaria hypnozoites.

In the 1970s and 80s he worked at the Ross Institute of Tropical Hygiene, LSHTM, holding the post of Senior Chief Medical Technical Officer in the Department of Parasitology 1985-1989.

Malcolm joined the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the late 1980s, where he was the Head of the LSTM’s Dagnall Teaching Laboratory from 1989 to 2000.

Malcolm was a highly popular, knowledgeable, and widely respected by all the DTMH and master’s students at LSTM.. Over the 11 years in charge of the lab, he supported well over 2000 students on these courses as they spent many hours seeking to find elusive parasites in blood or stools. He always had time for any student who had a query or was struggling to make a diagnosis. His knowledge of diagnostic parasitology was unsurpassed. This made him an appreciated resource post retirement for other courses, notably his many trips to Dublin where he was an Honorary Lecturer teaching on the Diploma course and to undergraduate medical students at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and with the RCSI course in the Medical University of Bahrain, between 2005-2014. He worked with WHO on setting up laboratory training courses in the Middle East.

He worked as a Consultant for WHO, the British Council and the Liverpool Associates in Tropical Health and his travels took him to west and east Africa, much of north Africa and southern Europe with the “leishmaniacs”, as they became known, as well as to Afghanistan and Pakistan with WHO. On retiring from LSTM, he became Scientific Administrator at the MRC laboratories in the Gambia. Malcolm was always ready to assist, support and provide advice. He had a great wit and sense of humour but was modest and calm with an engaging smile. He was a reliable, appreciated and committed scientist who will be fondly remembered by generations of students in both London and Liverpool and colleagues across continents.

Malcolm was an author on over 20 papers on malaria, trypanosomiasis, leishmaniasis and intestinal parasites, many generated by the Garnham and Killick-Kendrick teams and his technical contributions to laboratory and field parasitology was critical to their success.

Malcolm leaves behind his wife Frances and two daughters, Catherine and Beverley, to whom we send our deep and sincere condolences.

RSTMH would like to thank LSTM for sharing with us their memories of Malcolm Guy.