W. Franklin Smyth

Franklin Smyth couldn’t have realized back in the 1960s when a chemistry undergraduate at The Queen’s University of Belfast that he would remain interested in pharmaceutical analysis for close to half a century. “As is usually the case with such life-long passions, my early interest was stimulated and nourished by enthusiastic university supervisors and staff,” he says. Since 1967, Smyth has lectured on and researched various methods of analysis, particularly using electrochemical, chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques. He has been keen to improve selectivity in multi-component formulation analysis and sensitivity as in trace drug and metabolite analysis in biological matrices. Smyth has written two books: “Voltammetric Determination of Molecules of Biological Significance” and “Analytical Chemistry of Complex Matrices” as well as 170 articles and reviews. “Over the years, I've travelled widely and continue as an active Emeritus Professor at The University of Ulster to build a network of international collaborations in Australia, Spain, Egypt and Italy, mainly concerned with synthetic and natural product pharmaceutical analysis”.