ELIZABETH Macgregor was a pioneering doctor whose dedicated research into cervical cancer saved the lives of thousands of women.

Dr Macgregor, who died in her 86th year, on the same day as it was announced that a vaccine for cervical cancer had finally been found, began the UK campaign for cervical smear testing in 1959.

During this time, a senior lecturer at Aberdeen University's department of pathology, she worked with Sir Dugald Baird and when he initiated a screening programme, Macgregor, as a consultant in his department, was put in charge.

The task she faced was groundbreaking and she began by fostering good relationships with GPs in Aberdeen and north-east Scotland to encourage them to send women in their practices to her screening unit for cervical smears.

She had an engaging presence and quickly gained respect and interest for her work. A dramatic fall in the incidence of cervical cancer in the region illustrated the success of the programme and the system was quickly copied throughout the UK. It has since been adopted by many countries around the world.

Since then, Dr Macgregor's method has been applied nationwide for more than four decades and herwork has been credited with helping save the lives of generations of women.

Elizabeth Macgregor, nee McPherson, was born in Glasgow and educated at Bearsden Academy and Glasgow University. While studying, she met her future husband, Professor Alastair G Macgregor. After graduating, she saw wartime service in the RAMC, reaching the rank of captain.

Always interested in maternity matters, she held various public health posts in child welfare, working with her husband in Glasgow, Sheffield and Edinburgh.

In 1959, she gained a research fellowship in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Aberdeen University, where her husband - later to become regius professor of malaria medica - had been appointed to a chair.

She quickly proved her mettle and a string of appointments followed, including medical assistant with Grampian Health Board, chairman and president of the British Society for Clinical Cytology and membership of the World Health Organisation-sponsored International Agency for Research on Cancer. From 1963 she had been a fellow of the International Academy of Cytology.

She was appointed OBE in 1986, and after retirement the same year, divided her time between homes in Aberdeen, London and the Isle of Seil, where she spent many summers with her 12 grandchildren, sailing around the west coast.

She died at the nursing home near Oban where she had lived for the past 18 months.

Dr Macgregor was predeceased in 1972 by her husband, Alastair, and later by her eldest son, Andrew. She is survived by her children, Elisabeth, Gordon and Donald Roy.

Donald, who followed the family tradition into medicine, remembered his mother as "a woman whose engaging presence touched a great many people. The legacy she has left is fairly momentous".

Dr Janet Elizabeth Macgregor, cancer screening pioneer;

born January 12, 1920, died October 8, 2005.