Cees Th. Smit Sibinga: An Autobiography

Cees Smit Sibinga was born in 1939 in Makassar in the former Dutch East Indies and spent the first part of his life in a Japanese internment camp. This experience was extremely important for the development of his attitude in and philosophy of life, in which a positive fighter spirit predominates. He subsequently studied medicine, specializing in clinical hematology, and then did his PhD at the University of Groningen. In 1976, he became the Regional Blood Bank Director for the northern part of the Netherlands, which he shaped into a model blood bank. Since 1976, for 28 years, he annually organized an international symposium on various aspects of blood transfusion. Areas of his investigations included the development of a freeze-dried cryoprecipitate preparation used for hemophilia treatment, cryopreservation of stem cells and platelets, and quality management. His academic focus then turned to the teaching and training of transfusion personnel in resource-limited countries.