Laboratory Director Monash University Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
About the memorial lecture honoree: Rosemary Biggs (1912-2001) was a pioneering Haematologist based in Oxford. In 1952, she devised a new test, the thromboplastin generation test for detecting Haemophilia. The same year with Robert MacFarlane, she discovered factor IX that they originally names Christmas factor, after Stephen Christmas the first patient to be deficient in Factor IX. These discoveries contributed to the development of the cascade model of coagulation. In 1953, Biggs & MacFarlane wrote the first UK guidelines for treating Haemophilia. Their proposal for a national haemophilia centre that housed departments for treatment, research and blood plasma fractionation was approved in 1964. At that time three–quarters of those known to have Haemophilia were treated at Oxford. She directed the Oxford Haemophilia centre until her retirement in 1977.
