Christine McCartney obituary

My friend and former colleague Christine McCartney, who has died aged 79, was a distinguished medical microbiologist and a tireless champion of public health microbiology.

As executive director of the Health Protection Agency’s Regional Microbiology Network, Christine played a central role in strengthening the links between laboratory microbiology and epidemiology, recognising that effective public health responses depended on the two disciplines working closely together. She championed the early adoption of whole-genome sequencing, collaborating with scientists at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds and Birmingham, as well as at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire.

Her leadership was particularly visible following the 2006 poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko with polonium-210. As part of the expert advisory pool supporting the government crisis response committee (Cobra), Christine interpreted technical findings and advised on public health risk. In 2007, she was made OBE.

Born and brought up in Glasgow, Christine was the elder daughter of Margaret (nee Keiller) and Donald McNiven, a publican. Although neither of her parents had an academic background, she was determined to pursue higher education and, after Victoria Drive secondary school, graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1967 with a degree in microbiology. She remained there as a research assistant and later lecturer, during which time she met Bill McCartney, a fellow lecturer, whom she married in 1974.

For her PhD, she investigated the properties of staphylococcal delta-toxin and went on to publish numerous scientific papers. In 1978 she was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists. She later co-authored the textbook Notes on Medical Microbiology (2002).

I first met Christine in 1994, when she took up a post as assistant director at the Central Public Health Laboratory, under the aegis of the Public Health Laboratory Service, in Colindale, north-west London, where I also worked. Following the incorporation of the PHLS into the HPA in 2003, Christine became executive director of the Regional Microbiology Network.

Although she formally retired from the HPA in 2012, her expertise remained in demand. She returned first as senior adviser to Duncan Selbie, then the chief executive of Public Health England, and later served as PHE’s professional lead for scientists.

Christine was an inspirational leader who always made time for colleagues and ensured that people felt valued. She combined a common-sense approach with a determination to find solutions, and her feedback was direct but constructive. Those who worked with her will also recall that her advice occasionally extended beyond science; always impeccably turned out herself, she believed that professionalism should be reflected in appearance as well as work.

Christine was warm, thoughtful and great fun and we remained close friends. Living in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, she and Bill shared a fondness for luxury cars, lavish holidays and fine dining. Christine liked to joke that it might have been her Triumph Spitfire that first caught Bill’s eye.

Diagnosed with cancer in 2020, she continued to work into 2021, until the Covid-19 pandemic made it difficult for her to continue the ambassadorial role she had undertaken in recent years.

She is survived by Bill.