My father, Felix Munkonge, who has died aged 64 following a stroke, was a biochemist recognized for the key role he played in coordinating the clinical testing of gene therapy as a possible treatment for cystic fibrosis . He was also a contributor to the team at AstraZeneca which supported the manufacturing capacity of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Felix joined AstraZeneca as a project manager in November 2020, at the height of the pandemic, and was responsible for managing laboratory-scale collaborations with various chief medical officers around the world. That work made a significant contribution to ensuring the global availability of the vaccine.
Born in Kasama, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Felix was the son of Magdalena (née Kapinda), a teacher and entrepreneur, and her husband, Geoffrey, a permanent secretary at the Ministry of Finance. He was educated at St Canisius Secondary School and grew up in Lusaka, but moved to the UK at the age of 13 to study at Redrice Boarding School in Hampshire, where lifelong friendships were made.
He stayed in Britain and went to London to study for a BSc in Biochemistry (1979-81) at Chelsea College, University of London. (now Chelsea College of Science and Technology), then to King’s College London to do a PhD (1982-85), and finally to the University of Southampton for his postdoctoral training.
In 1988 he returned to live in London with his girlfriend, Jane Laredo, an English teacher, and joined the Thrombosis Research Institute as a postdoctoral research fellow (1988-92).
He and Jane married in 1989, and they had two children. Felix loved nothing more than spending time with family and friends, and was passionate about maintaining strong ties to his Zambian roots, visiting the country on many occasions.
In 1992, Felix joined the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) in London, initially as a research fellow, then as an associate and lecturer for over 10 years. A larger-than-life character with a great sense of humor, he was a cornerstone of the NHLI team for more than a decade, and it was during his time there that he made contributions to the gene therapy program for cystic fibrosis by the faculty of medicine at Imperial College. He was regularly consulted by other scientists within the NHLI for his cell biology expertise.
After the NHLI Felix became a consultant biochemist and also joined King’s College London in 2016 to project manage the team at the Center for Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine to 2020. Over the course of his career, he analyzed, interpreted, wrote and co-authored 38 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology.
He is survived by Jane and his children, Jack and me.
