I was so sad to read the news about Andy. When I first set up the MRes Cancer Informatics course at Imperial College Andy was the first person I thought of to bring down to Imperial College London as an external examiner for this course. He served for four years on this course. Not only did he have all the relevant bioinformatics skills he was also a gentleman and accepted the role with enthusiasm. He was an excellent teacher with a sophistocated approach to asking questions that probed the students to their limits. He also discovered one of the greatest advantages of acting as an examiner was to identify the best students he could offer PhD and postdoc positions to and poach them up to Edinburgh. Im sure he will be sadly missed by all of his colleages, friends and family. James Flanagan.