Ethel Bidwell

Ethel Bidwell (12 July 1919 – 23 October 2003) was a British research scientist who investigated blood coagulation.

Ethel Bidwell
Bidwell in February 1998
Born12 July 1919
Haslingden, Lancashire
Died23 October 2003 (aged 84)
Durham, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationResearch scientist

In 1950, Bidwell, an enzyme chemist, joined the Oxford University team headed by Gwyn Macfarlane. Two years later, she began to study plasma concentration and selective extraction of factor VIII.[1]

By 1953, she had devised a technique to extract and concentrate bovine factor VIII that was 8000 times stronger than human plasma.[1]

In 1959 she was working on the preparation of human coagulation factors at the Medical Research Council Blood Coagulation Research Unit at Churchill Hospital, Headington, Oxford.[1]

Tilli Tansey wrote of inviting Bidwell to a witness seminar convened by the History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group:[2]

She was extremely reluctant to attend, telling me over the phone when I invited her that she had nothing to contribute. But I knew, from reading the journals of the time and from a casual conversation with a haematologist friend that she was the person who, in the 1950s, had discovered factor VIII, the first reliable treatment for haemophilia, and I wanted to hear her story.

Further reading
  • Denson, K. W. E. (2004). "Oxford, the Mecca for blood coagulation research in the 1950s and 1960s". Thromb Haemost. 2 (12): 2085–2088. doi:10.1111/j.1538-7836.2004.00969.x. PMID 15613008.

References
  1. Tilli Tansey; Daphne Christie, eds. (1999). Haemophilia: Recent history of clinical management. Wellcome Witnesses to Contemporary Medicine. History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group. ISBN 978-1-84129-008-9. OL 12568267M. Wikidata Q29581631.
  2. Story, Holly (24 September 2014). "Reality behind research: 21 years of oral history with Wellcome Witness". Wellcome Trust Blog. Archived from the original on 20 April 2015. Retrieved 6 June 2017.


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