Frank Fenner
Frank John Fenner AC, CMG, MBE, FRS, FAA ( born December 21, 1914 in Ballarat, Victoria, † 22 November 2010) was an Australian microbiologist and virologist.
Early years
Fenner graduated from the University of Adelaide where he acquired in 1938 with a Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery ( BS). In 1940 he was awarded the Diploma of Tropical Medicine of the University of Sydney.
Between 1940 and 1946 he served as an officer of the Australian Army Medical Corps in Australia, Palestine, Egypt, New Guinea and Borneo. For his work in the fight against malaria in New Guinea, he was awarded the Order Member of the British Empire ( MBE).
Career in Canberra
From 1949 Fenner worked at the Australian National University in Canberra. From 1949 to 1967 he was Professor of Microbiology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research began in 1949 and work on the myxoma virus as a possible biological solution to the rabbit plague in Australia. Prior to the release itself Fenner, Frank Macfarlane Burnet and Ian Clunies Ross injected the virus itself, to prove that they are not dangerous to humans.
From 1967 to 1973 he was Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research, and from 1973 to 1979 director of the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies.
Work at WHO
In 1969 he became a member of the informal Working Group on Monkeypox and Related Viruses and various committees of orthopoxviruses with the WHO. From 1978 to 1979 he was Chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of the eradication of smallpox. Professor Fenner told the World Health Assembly in 1980 for the world free of smallpox.