Dame Bridget Ogilvie, a parasitologist and former director of the Wellcome Trust, has died aged 88.
In the 1990s, Ogilvie became Wellcome's director and helped to establish the Wellcome Sanger Institute. She expanded Wellcome's major international partnerships and role in the Human Genome Project. She was a staunch supporter of the principle that genomic data must remain free and accessible to researchers around the world.
'Bridget was responsible for funding world-leading research that has made some of the most significant impacts on human health,' said Wellcome, calling her: 'A bold, inspiring, supportive leader, with a vision for long-term science who never shied from a challenge.'
Bridget Margaret Ogilvie was born in the remote rural town of Glen Innes in New South Wales, Australia, in 1938. She studied science at the University of Queensland and then transferred to the University of New England after a year, graduating in 1960 with a Bachelor of Rural Science. With a Commonwealth Scholarship, she completed her PhD in parasitology at the University of Cambridge in 1964. Continuing her research career in immunology and parasitic infection, she joined the National Institute for Medical Research in London.
She joined Wellcome in 1981 to run the tropical medicine programme, including six research sites around the world, enlarging Wellcome's support for research in Africa and the Asia-Pacific. In 1991, she became Wellcome's director. During her nearly two decades at the Wellcome Trust, the organisation expanded from a modestly sized research funding body giving away about £10 million in research grants per year, to a very large body distributing about £300 million annually.
Post-retirement, Ogilvie was engaged in public communication and science education. She took on a variety of roles, including as a trustee of the Science Museum and of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; as well as chairing the AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust and the Association of Medical Research Charities. In 2002, she co-founded the charity Sense About Science, which provides accessible science evidence to the public.
She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1997 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2003. She received Australia's highest civilian honour, Companion of the Order of Australia, in 2007.
'Bridget brought a wonderful humour and straightforwardness wherever she went,' said Rory Guinness, from the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, of which she was chair from 2002-2011. 'Despite achieving so much, she was always quick to recall, with great pride, her humble Aussie roots.'
In later life, she returned to Sydney, where she enjoyed gardening and the company of friends.