“His landmark studies were on mousepox. Apparently Fenner, a 90-year-old microbiologist, calmly told The Australian newspaper recently that the human race faces extinction within 100 years due to… wait for it!… overpopulation, famine and, yes, climate change. When I began, however, I wasn’t really an expert in any aspect of environmental resource matters. The gastric brooding frog raised her babies in her stomach. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I had started off by studying the experimental epidemiology of ectromelia – mousepox – a virus of mice which Burnet had shown was closely related to vaccinia virus and therefore to smallpox virus. That Walter and Eliza Hall background lasted only two and a half years, but with the mousepox work they were very influential years. The Fenner School of Environment & Society was founded in 2007, bringing together the former Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, the School for Resources, Environment and Society, and the Departments of Forestry and Geography. And you can look on smallpox as an environmental disease. In 2010, eminent Australian virologist Frank Fenner claimed that humans will probably be extinct in the next century thanks to overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change. It writes reports: there is now a range of about 50, some of which have been very influential. I justified this on the grounds that you could call it an environmental disease. But I was lucky, I fell on my feet. Transcript [Music plays and an image appears of the Australian Government Coat of Arms and the Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year badge and text appears: Frank Fenner Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, Associate Professor Laura Mackay, The Prime Minister’s Prizes for … I think that might cause some problems with the animal welfare lobbies there. Professor Frank Fenner, microbiologist and virologist. It seems you had very exciting parents. Smallpox - which had plagued mankind since the time of the pharaohs - had been eradicated. Even splitting it up leaves a pretty nice nest-egg. No, two years earlier, in 1958. It was eventually published by Cambridge University Press in 1965. Frank Fenner is the winner of the 2002 Prime Minister's Prize for Science for his work in the field of virology. One of the provisions of the charter, which was signed by the Queen in 1954, was that they had to have 50 members by the end of that year. For five years, from 1967 to 1973, he served as the Director of John Curtis School. It was clean, you didn’t get dust in your eyes, it was safe – when my wife came home from a trip to see a friend in Canada, she arrived at one side of town at 2am and just got an underground to come across to where we were staying. Yes. That meant struggling rather hard. I think only one man in our year didn’t enrol in the Army or Air Force. I used to go about six times a year to Geneva and also I had some fascinating trips to China, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, all sorts of different places. He wrote the theoretical part of that, for which he got a Nobel Prize; I wrote the more mundane part. It is a lab virus; it multiplies to 1010 per millilitre of virus; it is easy to get; it grows on any cell culture; it produces different kinds of pocks on the chorioallantoic membrane so I could pick pocks, that is single clones of virus, readily. Explore free online learning resources about the smallpox epidemic on Australia's Defining Moments Digital Classroom. He was awarded an OBE for his work combating malaria in New Guinea. Those were great years and very important for you, quite apart from the medical side. But there are others coming out, including a very good one from the present chairman, Fred Murphy, who is one of the collaborators in the book  Veterinary Virology. I was very much involved in sport there and I had a great life. We designed the H shape of that building. I was a member of the small committee of virologists that met for the first time in Moscow in 1969 to discuss whether this virus might consitute an animal reservoir of smallpox. There have been several proposals to introduce myxomatosis for rabbit control there. For a number of years we followed both the changes in virulence and the changes in rabbit resistance. Did this exciting offer just come out of the blue? Again I thought it would take a year, but it took three years. When it had to be by ship, it would have been too slow to be possible. It is called  Smallpox and its Eradication. Frank Fenner was an extraordinary Australian, and it would be an honour to represent a seat named after him if I am re-elected in 2016. Sir Macfarlane Burnet, in full Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, (born Sept. 3, 1899, Traralgon, Australia—died Aug. 31, 1985, Melbourne), Australian physician, immunologist, and virologist who, with Sir Peter Medawar, was awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance, the concept on which tissue transplantation is founded. He was 95. Yes. And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at the Australian National University, has predicted that the human race will be extinct within the next 100 years. Eventually I got involved with the hard problem of demonstrating to the world that the eradication of smallpox had been achieved. I was the second of four boys in my family, with one sister. He agreed to provide me with three research fellowships as the funding for three additional positions. Australian scientist Frank John Fenner is one of the most distinguished names in the field of virology across the globe. I remember being in the shower, having happened to arrive on that night, and without even a dinner jacket. The comments were first made by Australian microbiologist Dr Frank Fenner in 2010, but science writer David Auerbach has reiterated the warning in his latest article for Reuters. We came across Canada on the Canadian Pacific, stopped at Lake Louise for a little while, and then got on the train. I like it very much, especially for these collaborative works done with a number of other authors. It covered epidemiology right down to genetics, at a molecular level. Even the locals would not think of doing that now. But we thought it was a worthy occasion. He was famous for his work on smallpox and the myxoma virus, which had been deadly for rabbits in Australia.. Fenner was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1914. They have been extremely successful, with five or six very good publications and very influential meetings on such things as the preservation of the coastline and adjacent wetlands; the Murray-Darling Basin; the history and preservation of the high country, the Alps; biological diversity, as a forerunner for the conference in Rio; and, recently, trade investment and the environment, and the various aspects of GATT that impact on environmental matters and so on. The publishers were a bit sceptical about its sales but for a veterinary textbook it sold very well, nearly 6000 copies. And the lab was an exciting place. Monkeypox virus looked to be a reasonable candidate as a reservoir of smallpox but when the committee looked at it we decided – correctly, I know now – that it was quite a different virus. Asked by Wiki User. After completing his preliminary education, he gained admission at the University of Adelaide where he attained his MBBS degree in 1938 and MD in 1942. Fenner was Director of the John Curtin School from 1967 to 1973. And now Professor Frank Fenner, emeritus professor of microbiology at … He studied for a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery at the University of Adelaide and graduated in 1938. I was catapulted not into assisting but actually into making various measurements – height, breadth of nose, and so on. It didn’t multiply in the vector; it was carried mechanically by it. Not all your travels have been together, but during your time with the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication you made some substantial journeys. The committee’s rules dismissed priorities of that kind, preferring a Latinised binomial system of genus and specific name. That marvellous piece of research was a great development. Burnet wrote the one on influenza virus, Brooksby wrote the one on foot-and-mouth disease virus, and so on – all historical. But the poxviruses of vertebrates fall into eight clearly distinguishable families, one of which includes eight or nine different viruses – of which smallpox, cowpox and vaccinia are the important ones for humans. They have subsequently been taken up intermittently by other people, with some very interesting results. It would often collapse, as you can imagine. We did look at everything. In 1977, he was named as the chairman of the Global Commission for Certification of Smallpox Eradication. Yes. You have had a long association with the Australian Academy of Science. Campbell consulted, during the writing of her book, Frank Fenner, who had overseen the final stages of a successful campaign by the World Health Organization (WHO) to eradicate smallpox. One proposal was for a survey of the Australian fauna and flora, which was finally set up as a biological survey of Australia and has produced a new flora of Australia. I suggested we should go to Tibet, where the last cases were, but they wouldn’t let us – they said it would take some weeks for us to get acclimatised. I think that aspect of his character that I saw was reflected in his work as President of the Royal Society: after 20 years of dithering, of trying to get decent quarters after Burlington House got too small, he was able to get Carlton House Terrace reconditioned to give them a splendid home for the next century. In retirement you have written another colossal text, this time on microbiology. The people in CSIRO Wildlife and Ecology are suggesting using an immuno-contraceptive approach by putting the relevant genes for zona pellucida into the myxoma virus and allowing it to sterilise those that it doesn’t kill. He worked on the pathogenesis, classification, morphology and relationship with other virus groups, the poxvirus group, on immunity and so on. Bestowed with several prestigious honors including Companion of the Order of Australia, Member of the Order of British Empire and Companion of the Order of the St Michael and St George, he dedicated his life to the eradication of communicable diseases. If you start reading that chapter you have to finish it before you put it down. And you published the final report over your signature? Again Keogh comes into it. Frank Fenner was born on December 21, 1914 and died on November 22, 2010. Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, OM, AK, KBE, FRS, FAA, FRSNZ (3 ... which was revised and reissued in 1949 with Frank Fenner as a co-author. You would have been their chief adviser in that sense. Name: Frank Fenner Lived: December 21, 1914 – November 22, 2010 What he did Frank Fenner played a very important role in the eradication of smallpox worldwide. They were excellent, very good companions. Alongside his directorial role at the John Curtis School, he established and served as the foundation Director of the Centre for Resources and Environmental Studies at the ANU from 1973 until his retirement in 1979. So that is the last aspect of my environmental activities. So we had an exciting time in his family life. Money had never been a problem in the ANU in our early days, up to the time I left the directorship of the John Curtin School. I’m going to a conference at Geelong this week on another proposal: to see whether the rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus can be used as a supplement. Recognizing his work and service in the field of medical science, public health and environment, he was bestowed with the prestigious honor of being appointed as Companion of the Order of Australia (AC). I received great help from ‘Bob’ – Sir Rutherford – Robertson, the Director of the ANU Research School of Biological Studies. We decided that was not a good acronym, so we just switched: the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies, CRES, pronounced 'cress', gave quite a good acronym. As well as general aspects like international activities and microbiology in the two world wars, we included protozoology, soil bacteriology, water microbiology, viruses – of course – and institutions where microbiology is done and so on. 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