It's little known one of Australia's greatest virologists, and the doctor who helped organise the campaign against and announced the eradication of smallpox for the World Health Organisation, was born in Ballarat.
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Frank John Fenner spent 70 years studying viruses and immunology. His work with the renowned researcher Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet led to great breakthroughs in understanding how vaccines effectively work with the human body to combat viruses. Fenner led the WHO global commission for the certification of smallpox eradication, which took place in 1980.
Fenner was also responsible for the initial studies on the myxoma virus, which could have potentially eradicated the scourge of rabbits from Australia, had it been more carefully managed. When challenged that myxomatosis could be dangerous to humans, Fenner, Burnet and fellow researcher Ian Clunies-Ross rolled up their sleeves and injected themselves with the virus, famously proving it was safe.
Professor Phil Hodgkin is joint division head of the division of immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI), where Frank Fenner began his studies into virology and immunology after the Second World War. He knew Frank Fenner later in life, and remembers him as a quiet, reserved and unassuming man with a razor-sharp memory of his life and career.
"He had an amazing memory for details over his career about viruses, that's what struck me," Professor Hodgkin recalls.
"Even when he was in his late 80s, he could talk to you about details of viral epidemiology that he'd studied many, many years earlier. You wouldn't say he was one of those dominant people, always on the front foot advancing their ideas. He was very different. He held strong views, but he kept them to himself until he was drawn out on them.
"The link with (Macfarlane) Burnet is amazing, because after his time in the army he's effectively recruited by Burnet as his research assistant,and they write a series of books together."
Fenner authored many books and monographs with Burnet, one of which,The Production of Antibodies, contained the seed of the idea which, Professor Hodgkin says, won Burnet (and Peter Medawar) the Nobel Prize in 1960: that self-tolerance might be learned in young life.
Self-tolerance refers to the ability of the human immune system to recognise self-produced antigens, those substances which cause us to produce antibodies. By not rejecting these antigens, the body builds immunity to illness. The understanding of tolerance is the basis for immunology.
A simple sentence in the book became Burnet's Nobel Prize, but Fenner was not recognised.
"I asked (Fenner) about that once," Professor Hodgkin says.
"This is a book by both of you, were you upset Burnet got the Nobel? 'Oh no', he said, 'It was pretty clear it was Burnet's idea.' Even though he'd done all the research."
He held strong views, but he kept them to himself until he was drawn out on them
- Professor Phil Hodgkin, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute
Though his family was transferred to Adelaide when he was just two, Frank Fenner was born in Doveton Street, Ballarat in 1914. His father Charles was born at Dunach, north of Clunes, and proved himself a brilliant scholar of his own accord. In the year of Frank's birth he was appointed principal of the Ballarat School of Mines and head of the Geology Department, after having been a compositor on the Talbot Leader newspaper in his youth.
In Adelaide Frank Fenner entered university keen on following his father's study of geology. His parents however convinced him there were plenty of 'duffers' studying medicine, and the recompense for his work as a physician would be superior. Accordingly Fenner studied Latin ( a prerequisite) and soon was winning prizes and scholarships for his academic prowess.
In 1938 Fenner volunteered to work at The Northfield Infectious Disease Hospital, where he encountered firsthand the effects of the diseases diphtheria and poliomyelitis. One patient had been to primary school with Fenner; he was afflicted with paralysis, which shook the young medical student. Fenner also took part in anthropological expeditions, before enlisting as a medical officer with the Australian Army in 1940.
Fenner's war service took him from Palestine through Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and Crete to New Guinea, and Borneo. He was admitted as a doctor in his absence, and continued to study malaria, a curse for soldiers in Greece as well as the jungle, and bacterial dysentery while on duty.
Fenner returned to Brisbane in 1941 to work in a tent hospital, where he met a blood transfusion nurse named Margaret 'Bobbie' Roberts who had been assigned to assist him in his work. They married in 1944. Fenner was sent on recreational leave from New Guinea to work at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (WEHI) in Melbourne, where he met its director Frank Macfarlane Burnet, the great virologist later to be awarded the Nobel Prize.
During his time in New Guinea Fenner noted the rise in malarial cases was always due to a lack of preventative discipline. In the case of malaria, this was caused by troops failing to take atebrin. Malaria was responsible for ten times more Australian soldiers being out of service than those killed or wounded.
Burnet offered Fenner a fellowship at WEHI following the war, on the recommendation of the extraordinarily brilliant doctor and Great War veteran Esmond (Bill) Keogh. Fenner and his wife Margaret specialised in the ectromelia virus, which became known as mousepox for its ability to cause similar symptoms to smallpox in mice.
The pair travelled to the United States to continue their research work at the Rockefeller Institute before returning to Australia in 1950. Sir Howard Florey (later Lord Florey) , who had won the Nobel Prize for his work on penicillin in 1945, sought and appointed Fenner as Professor of Microbiology at the new John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR) - a role which would become the significant position in Fenner's life.
Fenner was director of the JCSMR from 1967 to 1973. In 1977, he was made chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. He was a staunch advocate for the environment, and critical of the way humans degraded their world, predicting it would lead to our eventual extinction.
Would Frank Fenner have bought into criticising the current misinformation campaigns about the safety of vaccination?
"He would have been a very strong advocate for vaccines," Professor Hodgkin says, "but I never heard him once say anything scathing about anyone."
Frank Fenner died in 2010.
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