The young French sci­en­tists mur­dered in Lon­don were “two of the bright­est stu­dents of their gen­er­a­tion” who were at the fore­front of research into human dis­ease and envi­ron­men­tal issues.

by Richard Edwards and Rupert Neate
Telegraph.co.uk

Lau­rent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, both 23, were in the sec­ond year of a three-year Master’s degree in bio-engineering in France.

They had won intern­ships to take part in a three-month research project into chains of pro­tein within DNA at London’s Impe­r­ial College.

The pair arrived in May and were just a few weeks from return­ing home when they were killed.

They were born in north and south­ern France, but became close friends at the Poly­tech Clermont-Ferrard, a state run insti­tu­tion founded in 1794 which is viewed as the most pres­ti­gious engi­neer­ing Grande Ecole in France.

“They were bril­liant stu­dents with glit­ter­ing careers ahead of them,” said a spokesman for the Polytech.

“There is no doubt that they were two of the bright­est stu­dents of their gen­er­a­tion. Every­body is absolutely dev­as­tated at what has hap­pened. Emo­tions are run­ning very high.”

Mr Bonomo was brought up in the medieval vil­lage of Velaux, near Mar­seille and left La Nativite school in Aix in 2001.

Known to close friends as Lolo, he has been described as a socia­ble and well-rounded young man, with a pas­sion for his work, ten­nis and chess.

At the Poly­tech, where he had spent a year as stu­dent union pres­i­dent, stu­dents remem­bered him from “count­less parties”.

He was very close to his fam­ily, who he spoke to on most days while in Eng­land, and was engaged to Mary Bertez, who stud­ies at the Uni­ver­sité de Valen­ci­ennes, Lille.

Four days before his mur­der, Miss Bertez, posted a mes­sage on his Face­book page: “Cheri, a lit­tle hello from St Paul-sur-Vence. Miss­ing you...”

The post is among many from a wide cir­cle of friends and fam­ily, among whom Mr Bonomo was clearly a much loved figure.

Another mes­sage from Miss Bertez said: “Come back quickly, mon chou!!! Lon­don is too far away. Sniff! Love you to death. Your princess!”

At Impe­r­ial Col­lege, Mr Bonomo was research­ing how pro­teins in a par­a­site cause dis­ease in humans.

Pro­fes­sor Steve Matthews, who worked closely with him, said: “Lau­rent was par­tic­u­larly mature and well-rounded. He was a keen ten­nis fan and look­ing for­ward to fol­low­ing the French play­ers at Wimbledon.

He added: “Lau­rent was very well-liked. He was intel­li­gent and he obvi­ously had a bright future. He was con­spic­u­ous in the fact that he was mature, well-rounded and with excel­lent English.”

Mr Ferez, was brought up in Prouzel, near Amiens, and described his hob­bies on a per­sonal web­site as trav­el­ling play­ing his gui­tar gar­den­ing and DIY.

He worked as a tech­ni­cian at the Hopi­tal Philipe Pinel in Amiens and spent time at a uni­ver­sity in Mex­ico last year. He said he dreamed of vis­it­ing Canada and Finland.

At uni­ver­sity he was trea­surer of the arts club.

As well as hav­ing a bril­liant sci­en­tific brain, he was a prodi­gious reader of his­tory books, and played bad­minton regularly.

Friends recalled that he loved the Hugh Lau­rie TV series Doc­tor House, as well as cook­ing and lis­ten­ing to music.

On a per­sonal web­site, Mr Ferez admit­ted that his per­sonal life was “less suc­cess­ful than I had expected”.

In Lon­don he was work­ing on the pro­duc­tion of ethanol from bac­te­ria for use as a biofuel.

Stu­dent Nicky Crowhurst, 25, who shared a lab­o­ra­tory with Mr Ferez, said he was a “really nice guy”.

“It’s a huge shock. I can’t believe it. Him and his mate were always in the lab. They had only been here a lit­tle while”.