title: Back to the beginnings: an autobiography.
abstract: After receiving BS and MS degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle, I entered its new medical school in 1947, receiving an MD degree in 1951. After internship and residency, I obtained a 2-year postdoctoral fellowship in hematology under the guidance of Dr Clement Finch. The last 6 months of the fellowship were spent in London, England, at Dr Patrick Mollison's Blood Transfusion Research Unit. There I met and worked with Marie Cutbush (later Crookston) who has been a long-term friend. On returning to Seattle, I joined the faculty of the medical school and became the associate director of the Puget Sound Blood Center. There, I supervised the blood typing and cross-matching laboratory, introducing methods I had learned in London and measuring the effectiveness of various cross-matching procedures. My own research was largely directed toward human genetic polymorphism, and I wrote a textbook published in 1969, describing the biochemical structure, function, inheritance, and geographic distribution of the genetic markers. Subsequently, I discovered that 2 forms of inherited immunodeficiency disease were due to deficiencies of the enzymes adenosine deaminase and purine nucleoside phosphorylase. In 1979, I became the director of the blood center and was shortly afterwards elected to the National Academy of Sciences. I retired in 1987 and have spent most of the intervening years relearning to play the violin and exploring the wonders of chamber music.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA. elogtt@msn.com
authors.forename: Eloise R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Giblett
mesh_terms: D001771:Blood Banks; D001789:Blood Group Antigens / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D005260:Female; D005819:Genetic Markers; D006405:Hematology / Q000266:history; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D007153:Immunologic Deficiency Syndromes / Q000235:genetics; D011110:Polymorphism, Genetic / Q000276:immunology
chemical_list: D001789:Blood Group Antigens; D005819:Genetic Markers