My wife, Marion Ecob-Prince, who has died aged 74, was a scientist who spent her career studying the neuromuscular junction, where nerves and muscle fibers meet. Working in laboratories in New York, Newcastle and Glasgow, she developed tissue culture techniques to study the progression of a range of neuromuscular diseases that can cause severe pain, muscle atrophy and numbness.
Born in Heanor, in Derbyshire, to Anne (née Ford), an assistant in a post office, and John Ecob, a delivery driver, Marion attended Spondon Park Grammar School in Derby, where she was an excellent fencer, captain of the netball team and head girl. In 1968 she went to the University of Bristol to study microbiology, and in her freshman year won the British Universities Women’s Fencing Championship (foil).
After graduation, Marion was awarded a Kennedy Scholarship to attend for a year Harvard University in the USA. While there, she became the New England Fencing Champion.
When she returned, she began a PhD at the University of Cambridge. Based at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, she looked at how the viruses that cause measles and Dawson’s disease interact in nerve cell cultures.
Her PhD was awarded in 1975, after which she became a researcher at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, before moving across town to Mount Sinai Hospital.
Returning to the UK in 1978, she joined the Muscular Dystrophy Laboratory at Newcastle General Hospital under the neurologist. John Waltonwhich makes a specific study of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a severe form of the condition that mainly affects boys.
In 1988 she moved to Glasgow University to use her tissue culture technique to investigate the use of the herpes virus as a vector to deliver medication into cell nuclei. In 1994 she took a position as assistant registrar at Newcastle University medical school, before retiring in 1999.
Marion married Simon Johnston in 1973 and they divorced in 1982. We married in 1985 and spent many wonderful vacations together, camping in the mountains of Washington and Oregon and hiking all over Europe.
Marion’s interests were always related to activity; besides being an avid hiker, she loved to ski, play squash and ride her bike. However, her greatest passion was for the garden she designed, created and worked on. Her approach to gardening was the same as her science: keen observation, experimentation and meticulous record keeping.
She is survived by me and her twin brother, David.
