Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet

Australian virologist

The Australian virologist Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet (1899-1985) was known world-wide for his scientific research on viruses and immunology. Together with the British Sir Peter Medawar, he received the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1960 for discovering acquired immunological tolerance.

University of Melbourne

Frank Macfarlane Burnet was born in Traralgon, Victoria and earned a degree from the University of Melbourne. At first he became pathologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. In 1926 he went to London to spend a year at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine. While in London he earned a degree from the University of London. During his second trip to London, Burnet worked at the National Institute for Medical Research, where he developed a technique for cultivating viruses using chick embryos.

Immune system

From 1944 to 1965 Burnet was director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne. Here Burnet discovered that the immune system recognizes and attacks foreign invaders, but ignores the body's own tissue. Peter Madawar proved Burnet correct in several experiments.