Ruth Sanger; Studied, Co-Wrote Textbook on Blood Grouping

Ruth Sanger, 82, an authority and textbook author on blood grouping, died June 4 in London.

Born in Queensland, Australia, and graduated from Sydney University, she moved to London after World War II to work with the late Robert Race at his Medical Research Council Blood Group Unit. They studied red cell antigens and the antibodies that identified them, with special attention to the rhesus blood group system.

Sanger and Race co-wrote “Blood Groups in Man,” a standard textbook on the subject first published in 1950. The book has gone through six editions. The co-authors married in 1956, and Race died in 1984.

Sanger became a fellow of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society in 1972. She directed the Medical Research Council Blood Group Unit from 1973 until her retirement in 1983.