MRC Blood Group Unit

Directors

• R.R. Race FRS, 1946–1973
• Ruth Sanger FRS, 1973–1983
• Dr Patricia Tippett, 1983–1995

  Scientific achievements

• Elucidating the genetics of the Rhesus blood group. Director R.R. Race with R.A. Fisher had proposed the most widely accepted genetic nomenclature for the Rhesus system. Much of the early work of the unit was concerned with identifying genetic variants of this system which became possible after the initial discovery by Karl Landsteiner and the development of the Coombs test.
• Human Blood Groups in Man. A technical reference work written by the unit's first two directors. It was first published in 1950; its final, and 6th, edition appearing in 1975. For much of this period this was a standard reference work for Clinical Haematologists and Blood Transfusion centres.
• Refinement of the genetics of the MNS antigen system.
• Xg antigen system. This was the first X-linked blood group to be discovered in 1962, and led to extensive work over the following decades, usually with collaborators, to map genes on the human X chromosome.
• WHO Collaborative Centre for Human Blood Groups.