Perthshire scientist Professor Iain Campbell has died aged 72.
Born in Blackford, he was renowned for developing the technique of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, which led to the development of new anti-cancer therapies.
It was first used in America in the late 1940s and 1950s as a way of determining the physical and chemical properties of atoms and molecules.
Mr Campbell, an experienced physicist, became involved in developing the technique in 1967 when he started working alongside Sir Rex Richards at Oxford University.
Within just three years, Professor Campbell was already pushing the boundaries of technology and took some of the first proton spectra of living cells a huge scientific advance at the time.
Mr Campbell’s work on NMR technology earned him a Department of Trade and Industry Education in Partnership with Industry Award in 1982.
His approach is now used in biomedical research programmes all over the world. Born on April 24 1941, Mr Campbell was educated at Perth Academy and went on to read physics at St Andrews University.
He and his fellow students built some of the earliest electronic spin resonance machines using old radar equipment.
After graduating in 1963, he completed a PhD under Dirk Bijl, moving with him to Bradford in 1966.
The following year, he joined Sir Rex Richards’ lab at Oxford, where he became a tutorial fellow of St John’s College and Professor of Structured Biology in 1992, staying on as emeritus professor after his official retirement in 2009.
Mr Campbell mentored and trained generations of biochemistry and biology students who have since gone on to leading roles in universities, research laboratories and pharmaceutical companies around the world.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1995 and in 2006, gave the Croonian Lecture, one of the most prestigious talks in the biological sciences.
He is survived by wife Karin Wehle and their son and two daughters.