Haematologist and architect of transfusion medicine. Born on March 17, 1914, in London, UK, he died on Nov 26, 2011, in London.In August, 1939, with Britain on the verge of war and anticipating air raids that might create a large number of civilian casualties, the Dean of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School assigned some of his younger staff to the South London Blood Supply Depot in Sutton, an outer suburb of the city. Although his choices were made at random, one in particular—Patrick Mollison, then aged 25 years—turned out to be propitious. Their initial task—collecting blood from donors to build up stocks—was hardly exciting. But overseen by the Medical Research Council (MRC) the depot began a modest research programme. Mollison was among the staff involved, and his work marked the start of a lifetime preoccupation with blood transfusion.One of his earliest projects, and the work for which he is still most remembered, was the improvement of blood storage. As Mollison recalled in a memoir about his research during this period, “The generally-used preservative solution for blood was a mixture of trisodium citrate and dextrose. The glucose was autoclaved separately and added to the citrate after it had been autoclaved because if the two were mixed and autoclaved together severe caramelisation occurred.” With a colleague, Maureen Young, Mollison checked the effect of acidifying the preservative solution. After extensive testing, they settled on a formula that gave good results. Dame Marcela Contreras, some time professor of transfusion medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, says that it's difficult to overestimate the impact of this development: “Before his experiments, you had to use a huge amount of anticoagulant—something like double the volume of blood you were taking.” The ACD preservative, as the formula became known, changed this. “You didn't have to autoclave the glucose separately, you needed a much smaller volume, and instead of storing blood for 3 or 4 days you could keep it 3 weeks. ACD was adopted worldwide and used for more than 30 years”, Contreras explains.Mollison's technical contributions were not confined to the ACD solution. “He was the first person in this country to do exchange transfusion through the umbilical cord for the treatment of Rh haemolytic disease”, says Contreras. He also worked on the technique of differential agglutination, and on the preservation of blood during freezing. Among his many other contributions, he co-identified the Buffy blood group.The son of a prominent ear, nose, and throat surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London, Mollison recalled the family's assumption that he too would become a doctor. “My father was determined on it, and I could see nothing against it.” He read natural sciences at Cambridge University, did his clinical training at St Thomas's Hospital, and qualified in 1938. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1943 to 1946, leaving it to rejoin St Thomas's Hospital. But Mollison was reluctant to abandon the work he'd begun on blood, and was delighted when the MRC offered him a permanent job as director of its Blood Transfusion Research Unit. In 1960, he moved to the MRC's Experimental Haematology Unit at St Mary's Hospital, and here he remained until his retirement from the National Health Service (NHS) in 1979. But his interest in blood continued. According to one of his sons, Simon, having no current research to discuss, “He turned to giving lectures on the history of blood transfusion, starting with an account of an experiment on dogs conducted by Christopher Wren. Pat joked that people invited him out of mere curiosity because he had already become a part of the history of medicine.”Joking or not, he was right. A tribute to him from Lorna Williamson, medical director of NHS Blood and Transplant, quotes the epithet “father of transfusion medicine”. Or as Contreras puts it, “He made transfusion medicine a specialty. He put everything together.” The enduring manifestation of his seminal influence is a textbook, Blood Transfusion in Clinical Medicine. “He wrote the first seven editions single-handed”, says Contreras, who became one of his co-authors on the next three. Contreras describes him as, “a very private and quiet man. A serious man, very hardworking and extremely meticulous, including in his writing.” Speaking at his father's funeral, his son Simon said, “Pat was well-known for his reserve. It is something of a paradox that someone who did little to reach out to other people inspired great affection in so many.” He leaves a wife and three sons by a former marriage. Haematologist and architect of transfusion medicine. Born on March 17, 1914, in London, UK, he died on Nov 26, 2011, in London. In August, 1939, with Britain on the verge of war and anticipating air raids that might create a large number of civilian casualties, the Dean of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School assigned some of his younger staff to the South London Blood Supply Depot in Sutton, an outer suburb of the city. Although his choices were made at random, one in particular—Patrick Mollison, then aged 25 years—turned out to be propitious. Their initial task—collecting blood from donors to build up stocks—was hardly exciting. But overseen by the Medical Research Council (MRC) the depot began a modest research programme. Mollison was among the staff involved, and his work marked the start of a lifetime preoccupation with blood transfusion. One of his earliest projects, and the work for which he is still most remembered, was the improvement of blood storage. As Mollison recalled in a memoir about his research during this period, “The generally-used preservative solution for blood was a mixture of trisodium citrate and dextrose. The glucose was autoclaved separately and added to the citrate after it had been autoclaved because if the two were mixed and autoclaved together severe caramelisation occurred.” With a colleague, Maureen Young, Mollison checked the effect of acidifying the preservative solution. After extensive testing, they settled on a formula that gave good results. Dame Marcela Contreras, some time professor of transfusion medicine at the Royal Free Hospital, says that it's difficult to overestimate the impact of this development: “Before his experiments, you had to use a huge amount of anticoagulant—something like double the volume of blood you were taking.” The ACD preservative, as the formula became known, changed this. “You didn't have to autoclave the glucose separately, you needed a much smaller volume, and instead of storing blood for 3 or 4 days you could keep it 3 weeks. ACD was adopted worldwide and used for more than 30 years”, Contreras explains. Mollison's technical contributions were not confined to the ACD solution. “He was the first person in this country to do exchange transfusion through the umbilical cord for the treatment of Rh haemolytic disease”, says Contreras. He also worked on the technique of differential agglutination, and on the preservation of blood during freezing. Among his many other contributions, he co-identified the Buffy blood group. The son of a prominent ear, nose, and throat surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London, Mollison recalled the family's assumption that he too would become a doctor. “My father was determined on it, and I could see nothing against it.” He read natural sciences at Cambridge University, did his clinical training at St Thomas's Hospital, and qualified in 1938. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1943 to 1946, leaving it to rejoin St Thomas's Hospital. But Mollison was reluctant to abandon the work he'd begun on blood, and was delighted when the MRC offered him a permanent job as director of its Blood Transfusion Research Unit. In 1960, he moved to the MRC's Experimental Haematology Unit at St Mary's Hospital, and here he remained until his retirement from the National Health Service (NHS) in 1979. But his interest in blood continued. According to one of his sons, Simon, having no current research to discuss, “He turned to giving lectures on the history of blood transfusion, starting with an account of an experiment on dogs conducted by Christopher Wren. Pat joked that people invited him out of mere curiosity because he had already become a part of the history of medicine.” Joking or not, he was right. A tribute to him from Lorna Williamson, medical director of NHS Blood and Transplant, quotes the epithet “father of transfusion medicine”. Or as Contreras puts it, “He made transfusion medicine a specialty. He put everything together.” The enduring manifestation of his seminal influence is a textbook, Blood Transfusion in Clinical Medicine. “He wrote the first seven editions single-handed”, says Contreras, who became one of his co-authors on the next three. Contreras describes him as, “a very private and quiet man. A serious man, very hardworking and extremely meticulous, including in his writing.” Speaking at his father's funeral, his son Simon said, “Pat was well-known for his reserve. It is something of a paradox that someone who did little to reach out to other people inspired great affection in so many.” He leaves a wife and three sons by a former marriage.