Professor Marcos Vidal – A Beautiful Mind

This week we were stunned in silence to hear that our friend and colleague, Marcos Vidal, had passed away. He has been described by his colleagues as the rising star of cancer research, and those of us who were fortunate enough to meet him and know him, know of his intellectual brilliance as well as beautiful personality. He was a true joy to have around; full of energy, enthusiasm and infectious positive attitude. My first encounter with Marcos was through this blog, Research the Headlines. He emailed me initially as he wanted to talk about our overlap in research projects and possible collaborations. He said he looked at my profile and thought we could do some interesting work. We finally met, not at the Royal Society of Edinburgh, but at a cancer research conference organised at the Beatson Institute. When we talked, I felt like we had been friends for a long time. He was very proud of his equally successful wife and we had a nice conversation about parenthood. Marcos was one of those people that you immediately gel with and can see why he was so successful. Great ideas, great mind and a collaborative and kind person!

Originally from Argentina, he did his postdoctoral fellowship in the States and obtained his independent group leader position at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in 2009. He published papers in top journals including most recently Nature, EMBO Journal, Current Biology. His brilliance was quite obviously recognised by others as well; he was an elected member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Young Academy of Scotland, and recently promoted to a full Professor at the Beatson Institute. His potential to achieve more amazing things leaves us sad and empty. Our condolences go out to his family, who must be heartbroken.

As for us, we will always remember him fondly and even though he leaves us at such a young age, he has touched the hearts of many; with this in mind, we look back at some of the posts that Marcos wrote for Research the Headlines and will always be grateful to have known him.

Mirela Delibegovic

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