It was very unfortunate that such a great friend, educator, investigator, a model father and husband an a great human being, passed away in October last year.
We were very privileged to have his friendship and his frequent visits to Mexico as well as his collaborations to Annals of Hepatology.
Andy born is Argentina, in Buenos Aires, he graduated from the School of Medicine in 1973, he did internship and residency In Argentina, then he went to United States in 1976, joined the group of Harold Conn one of the more outstandings clinical investigators in the area of liver cirrhosis complications. After two years doing Hepato-Gastroenterology he moved to Northwestern University at Chicago and continued Gastroenterology training until 1980.
Alongside with his productive medical career he married his wife Estela and then procreated his children Daniela and Alex, Andy constructed not only medical projects but also he created a beautiful family and hundred of friends who without doubts miss him.
Early Andy started to make science and friends, At the Hospital Posadas (Figure 1) a teching Hospital in Buenos Aires, he left behind the image of a sensible, dedicated, compasive and competent physician, he made only friends and there he liked guitar and football according with Posadas Hospital chronicle,1 there he also met his wife Estela a clinical doctor who was with him from the very beginning.
Dr. Blei became a world leader in the field of liver diseases and his pioonering work and research helped to establish the premier Center for Liver Diseases at the Northwestern Hospital and the Feinberg School of Medicine. Due to his capacity as educator and highly estimated investigator he was appointed as editor for Hepatology the leader journal in the field.
Little known outside the Spanish speaking hepatologist community, is the fact that in the mid 80’s. A group of Spanish speaking Hepatologists were convocated to form the Asociacion Hispanoparlante de Hepatologia. A group in which Marcos Rodkind, David Kershenobich, Roberto Grozmann, Juan Rodes, Jaume Bosch, Vicente Arroyo and some others included my self initiated the development of Hepatology with the leadership of the Spanish group. Andy as always made a substantial group of contributions to that initiative. Andy frequently was willing to visit and teach in the Latin America countries.
As the Gastroenterology journal in memoriam wrote in the December issue say Dr. Blei was a friend and collage who always had a pleasant and thoughtful demeanor. His knowledge of clinical and experimental Hepatology was vast, but his gentle style is what many of us remember most. He certainly will be missed, he with Roger Butterworth left us clear concepts of brain edema in hepatic encephalopathy but above all the message that delicate friendship can go alongside with great and profound scientific knowledge.
