Biochemist who transformed the treatment of diabetes and was an expert witness in two high-profile murder trials
Vincent Marks, who has died aged 93, was a world expert in insulin and hypoglycaemia (low blood sugar). In 1985, his expert opinion helped to acquit Claus von Bülow of attempted murder, in a case that was dramatised in the film Reversal of Fortune (1990).
On 21 December 1980, the American heiress Sunny von Bülow was discovered comatose in her bathroom, and she remained in a persistent vegetative state until her death in 2008. Her husband Claus, a Danish-born lawyer, was tried and found guilty of injecting her with insulin. On appeal in 1985, the defence showed there was no injection and, having scrutinised Sunny’s medical notes, Marks said her collapse was likely to have been triggered by alcohol-induced fasting hypoglycaemia. “Sunny,” he said, “was the victim of natural illness and her lifestyle.”
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