аÄÃÅ¿ª½±½á¹û

A myxoma virus was detected by a scientist.  Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on

Top 10 facts about Frank Fenner

Australian scientist Frank John Fenner is one of the most distinguished names in the field of virology across the globe. Fenner was 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 St Michael and St George, he dedicated his life to the eradication of communicable diseases.

 Fenner was drafted into the Australian Army Medical Corps where he worked as a physician, pathologist, and malariologist. He is remembered for his two great achievements: Overseeing the eradication of smallpox, and Control Australia’s rabbit plague through the introduction of the Myxoma virus.

In Frank’s honor, the Australian Academy of Science awards annually the prestigious Fenner Medal for distinguished research in biology by a scientist under 40 years of age.

It’s interesting of this man, let’s dive into knowing more facts about this prestigious man frank Fenner.

1. Fenner’s impressive educational background

University of Adelaide building is located on the North terrace near the torrent view. Photo by Vlad Kutepov on

Frank Fenner read medicine at the University of Adelaide, receiving Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees in 1938 and a Doctor of Medicine in 1942. He received a Diploma of Tropical Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1940.

 He served in Egypt and Papua New Guinea between 1940 -1946 as an officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, where he operated on the malarial parasite. After the war, he moved to the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, where he explored the virus that causes smallpox in mice.

When Frank returned to Australia in 1949, he was appointed Professor of Microbiology at the new John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University. Here he began studying viruses.

Fenner was Director of the John Curtin School from 1967 to 1973. During this time he was also Chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. In 1973 Fenner was appointed to set up the new Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University (ANU). He held the position of Director until 1979.

2. Frank Fenners family background

Image of a gold mining site.Photo by David Hellmann on

Fenner was born in 1914 in Ballarat, a former gold-mining town about 70 miles west of Melbourne. He was the second of four boys in his family, with one sister. Franks’s parents were from Victoria and when they got married, they were both teachers.

Frank’s father then became principal of the Ballarat School of Mines, having come up the hard way, leaving school when he was 13. He had obtained a BSc degree at the University of Melbourne while at the Teachers College and later obtained a Masters’s degree in geology and physiography.

In 1916, when he was appointed superintendent of Technical Education in South Australia, we moved over there and I had the whole of my upbringing, to the end of a university course, in Adelaide.

3. Fenner’s awards and achievements

Celebration confetti. Photo by Jason Leung on

7. Did Fenner form a good, lasting relationship with Burnet?

Friendship fist bump. Photo by Markus Spiske on

Oh yes! They have continued to be friends their entire lives. Burnet’s first wife, also his second wife used to live with them when he and Linda traveled to Britain for nine months and Fenner and his wife took charge of their children for them.

Burnet’s eldest son dropped out of University during their tutelage, while the eldest daughter got engaged and so they had an exciting time in his family life

8. Frank Fenners significant scientific writing

Well, he has written several books. From 1960–61 he had a year’s study leave at Churchill College, in England. Although that gave him the chance to go over to France and find the fascinating story of the French and myxomatosis, he didn’t have time to talk about how he spent most of the year writing a book, with Francis Ratcliffe, summarising myxomatosis. It was eventually published by Cambridge University Press in 1965.

He probably had guilt feeling early in his career about being a professor who had never in his life given a course of lectures, he went from the Hall Institute to the Rockefeller Institute, to the John Curtin School. 

Fenner wrote a large technical book, in two volumes, on the biology of animal viruses. Then David White, an ex-student who was a very good teacher and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Melbourne, and Fenner wrote Medical virology, which academic press in America published in 1970 with some misgiving. They hadn’t published a textbook before.

 9. Frank fenner’s plan on retirement which didn’t go as planned 

Frank Fenner had planned to do all his activities in a quieter, which didn’t happen. As he heard retirement, it was a big relief since he had no administrative responsibilities , which he always had as a director of a school or center worrying about people and money.

When those were shed he had an excellent job to do in writing the history of the eradication campaign, but in parallel, during quiet periods, he went on to write some other books. Whereas previously writing was his spare-time activity, it has now become his main, full-time activity.

Since he became personally wedded to an Apple Macintosh computer, that’s the only instrument that he would deal with. He liked it very much, especially for these collaborative works done with several of other authors. It’s so easy to alter, integrate and correct, stick things together and, rearrange.