Margaret Billingham

Margaret Evelyn Billingham ( Macpherson; September 20, 1930 - July 14, 2009) was a British-American pathologist at Stanford University Medical Center, who made significant achievements in the early recognition and grading of transplant rejection following cardiac transplantation, known as 'Billingham's Criteria'. She also described chronic rejection and techniques in heart endomyocardial biopsy.

Born in Tanzania, and educated at the Loreto School in Kenya, she subsequently qualified from the Royal Free Hospital in London, Billingham found herself developing rejection pathology and eventually becoming director of cardiac pathology at Stanford University Medical Center. She settled in the United States with her husband, who was also a doctor, and their two children, and died there in 2009.

Early life Billingham's father was posted as a British diplomat, to Tanzania.

Family She met her future husband John Billingham while they were both doing their junior house posts. They married in 1956, while they were both employed at Hampstead General Hospital. In 1963, they then emigrated to Houston, Texas, with their two sons, Robert and Graham. Two years later, in 1965, they moved to San Francisco Bay. Her husband became chief of the life sciences division at Ames Research Center.

Medical career In 1966, Billingham started a 2-year postdoctoral researcher at Stanford. Originally in cardiopulmonary medicine, she then switched to pathology in 1968. By 1988, Billingham was professor in pathology at Stanford. In addition, she also worked on research into the toxicity of the Adriamycin, a chemotherapy drug. In 1990, she became the first female president of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT).

Billingham authored more than 500 papers, abstracts and chapters.

Later life and legacy In 1994, three years after being appointed director of women in medicine and medical sciences at Stanford's school of medicine, she retired.

Billingham received numerous International honours and awards. In 1986, she received the medal for histopathology of heart transplantation, from the University of Padua, and the city of Paris gold medal for contributions to heart transplantation. awarded her their lifetime achievement award.

Selected publications .