Burnet, Frank Macfarlane (1899 - 1985)

Summary

Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne 1944-1966. In 1960 he (with P. Medawar) was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance. His work influenced the later developments of DNA sequencing.

Details

Chronology

1922

Education - Bachelor of Medicine (MB) and Bachelor of Surgery (BS), University of Melbourne

1924

Education - Doctor of Medicine (MD), University of Melbourne

1925 - 1927

Career position - Beit Memorial Fellowship, Lister Institute in London

1928

Education - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of London

1928 - 1931

Career position - Bacteriologist, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research (WEHI)

1932 - 1933

Career position - National Institute of Medical Research funded work in London

1934 - 1943

Career position - Assistant Director of WEHI

1935

Award - Stewart Prize, British Medical Association

1938

Award - Walter Burfitt Prize, Royal Society of New South Wales

1939

Award - Cilento Medal, Australian Institute of Anatomy

1942 - 1985

Award - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)

1944 - 1965

Career position - Director of WEHI

1947

Award - Royal Medal, The Royal Society, London

1951

Award - Knight Bachelor (Kt) - for services to biological research

1953

Award - Charles Mickle Fellowship, University of Toronto, Canada

1953

Award - Lasker Award, American Public Health Association

1953

Award - Elizabeth II Coronation Medal

1953 - 1985

Award - Petitioner for the Academy, Founding Fellow, Australian Academy of Science (FAA)

1954

Award - Von Behring Prize for 1952, University of Marburg

1954

Award - James Cook Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales

1954

Award - Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences

1957

Award - President, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS)

1957

Award - Foreign member, Royal Swedish Academy of Science

1958

Award - Member of the Order of Merit (OM) - Winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960

1958

Award - Galen Medal, the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London

1959

Award - Copley Medal, The Royal Society, London

1959

Award - Matthew Flinders Medal and Lecture, Australian Academy of Science

1959 - 1960

Career position - President, Australian Society for Microbiology

1960

Award - Honorary member, Royal Society of New Zealand

1960

Award - Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1961

Award - Second Order of the Rising Sun (with Double Rays)

1962

Award - Doctor of Laws (LLD), honoris causa, University of Melbourne

1962

Award - New York University Medal

1962

Award - Mueller Medal, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science

1963

Award - James Spence Medal, British Paediatric Association

1965 - 1969

Award - President, Australian Academy of Science

1966 - 1977

Career position - Writer and elder statesman of science, University of Melbourne

1967

Award - Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene Medal

1967

Award - Silver Medal, l'Institut de Microbiologie et d'Hygiene de l'Université de Montreal, Canada

1969

Award - Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) - President of the Australian Academy of Science

1971

Award - First International Congress of Immunology Award

1973

Award - Distinguished Service Award, International Association of Allergy

1974

Award - Doctor of Science (DSc), honoris causa, University of Newcastle

1977

Award - Elizabeth II Jubilee Medal

1978

Award - Knight of the Order of Australia (AK) - for extraordinary and meritorious service to medicine and to science particularly in the fields of microbiology and immunology

Related entries

Archival resources

Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science

• Frank Macfarlane Burnet - Records, 1924 - 1976, MS 098; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details
• Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Research in Pathology and Medicine, c. 1936 - c. 1940, MS 052; Adolph Basser Library, Australian Academy of Science. Details

The University of Melbourne Archives

• Frank Macfarlane Burnet - Records, 1880 - 1986, 89/34; The University of Melbourne Archives. Details

Wellcome Collection

• Victoria Eugenics Society, 1940 - 1961, SA/EUG/E.4; Eugenics Society [SA/EUG]; Wellcome Collection. Details

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• Australasian Science, A Bright Sparcs Exhibition, Australian Science Archives Project, 1997, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/exhib/journal/journal.htm. Details
• Evans, Joanne; McCarthy, Gavan; Stephens, Robin, Centenaries of Australian Science, Discovery and Endeavour: Celebrating Australian Science, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, AustehcWeb, Melbourne, 4 August 1999, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/cent/. Details
• Smith, Ailie, Adolph Basser Library Manuscript Collection, eScholarship Research Centre, 2012, http://www.eoas.info/basser_browse.html. Details

Articles

• Sankaran, Neeraja, 'The Bacteriophage, its Role in Immunology: how Macfarlane Burnet's Phage Research Shaped his Scientific Style', Studies in the History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 41 (2010), 367-75, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2010.10.012. Details
• Sherratt, Tim, 'From Beetles to a Nobel Prize: Macfarlane Burnet', Australasian Science, Autumn (1994), http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/exhib/journal/as_burnet.htm. Details

Books

• Burnet, F. M.; and Clark, Ellen, Influenza: a survey of the last 50 years in the light of modern work on the virus of epidemic influenza (Melbourne: Macmillan, 1942), 118 pp. Details
• Burnet, Frank Macfarlane, Changing Patterns an Atypical Autobiography (Melbourne: Heinemann, 1968), 282 pp. Details
• Burnet, Macfarlane, Endurance of Life: the Implication of Genetics for Human Life (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1978), 230 pp. Details
• Burnet, Macfarlane, Sir, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, 1915-1965 (Carlton, Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1971), 193 pp. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan; Manhal, Oscar; O'Sullivan, Lisa; Sherratt, Tim, A Guide to the Records of Frank Macfarlane Burnet (Melbourne: Australian Science Archives Project, 1993), 156 pp. Details
• Sexton, Christopher, The Seeds of Time: the Life of Sir Macfarlane Burnet (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1992), 301 pp. Details

Book Sections

• Beale, R, 'Frank Macfarlane Burnet' in Australia's Nobel Laureates - Adventures in Innovation (Sydney: ABIE Australian Business and Investment Explorer, 2004), pp. 44-53. Details
• Burnet, Frank Macfarlane, 'Kellaway, Charles Halliley (1889-1952), medical scientist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 9: 1891 - 1939 Gil-Las, Bede Nairn and Geoffrey Serle, eds (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1983), pp. 546-547. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/kellaway-charles-halliley-6910. Details
• Burnet, Frank Macfarlane, 'The Clonal Selection Theory af Acquired Immunity' in Milestones in Immunology: A Historical Exploration, Debra Jan Bibel, ed. (London: Science Tech, 1988), pp. 185-187. Details
• Burnet, Frank Macfarlane; Fenner, Frank, 'The Production of Antibodies' in Milestones in Immunology: A Historical Exploration, Debra Jan Bibel, ed. (London: Science Tech, 1988), pp. 181-184. Details
• Mazumdar, Pauline M. H., 'Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, 1899-1985' in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004). Details
• Nossal, G. J. V., 'Burnet, Sir Frank Macfarlane (1899-1985), Medical Scientist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 17: 1981 - 1990 A-K, Diane Langmore, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 160-164. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/burnet-sir-frank-macfarlane-mac-12267. Details
• Park, Hyung Wook, 'Burnet, Frank Macfarlane' in New Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Koertge, Noretta, ed., vol. 1 (Detroit : Charles Scribner's Sons, 2008), pp. 454-459 . Details

Conference Proceedings

• Radiation Biology: Proceedings of the Second Australasian Conference on Radiation Biology held at the University of Melbourne, 15-18 December, 1958 edited by Martin, J.H. (New York: Academic Pres Inc., 1959), https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/5561618. Forward, pages v - vii. Details

Journal Articles

• Anderson, Warwick, 'The Military Spur to Australian Medical Research', Health and History, 15 (1) (2013), 80-103. Details
• Anderson, Warwick and Mackay, Ian R., 'Fashioning the Immunological Self: the Biological Individuality of F. Macfarlane Burnet', Journal of the History of Biology, 47 (1) (2014), 147-75. Details
• Burnet, F. M., 'Changes of twenty-five years in the outlook on infectious diseases', Medical Journal of Australia, 1939 (1) (1939), 23-8. Details
• Burnet, F. M., 'Derrick and the story of Q fever', Medical Journal of Australia, 1967 (2) (1967), 1067-8. Details
• Burnet, Frank Macfarlane, 'David Orme Masson', Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute, 25 (1958), 530-532. Details
• Crust, Eileen; Tauber, Alfred A., 'Selfhood, Immunity, and the Biological Imagination: TheThought of Frank Macfarlane Burnet', Biology & Philosophy, 15 (4) (2000), 509-533. Details
• Fenner, F., 'Frank Macfarlane Burnet, 1899-1985', Historical Records of Australian Science, 7 (1) (1987), 39-77. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9870710039. Details
• Fenner, F. J., 'Frank Macfarlane Burnet, 3 September 1899 - 31 August 1985, elected F.R.S. 1942', Biographical memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, 33 (1987), 101-62. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1987.0005. Details
• Flesch, Juliet and McPhee, Peter, '150 Years, 150 Stories: Frank Macfarlane Burnet', Uni News, 12 (15) (2003), 4. Details
• Gault, E. W., 'Cameron, Burnet and Willis - three Australian pathologists', Indian Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, 14 (1971), 53-67. Details
• Mackay, I. R., 'The 'Burnet Era' of Immunology: Origins and Influence', Immunology and Cell Biology, 69 (5) (1991), 301-305. Details
• Mackay, I. R., 'Burnet Oration: Auto-immunity, Paradigms of Burnet and Complexities of Today', Immunology and Cell Biology, 70 (1992), 159-171. Details
• Marchalonis, John J., 'Burnet and Nossal: the Impact of Immunology on the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute', Quarterly Review of Biology, 69 (1994), 53-67. Details
• Nossal, G. J. V., 'Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet (1899-1985)', Nature, 317 (1985), 108. Details
• Nossal, Gustav, 'Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, OM, FRS, Nobel Laureate, 1899-1985', Eureka Street, 9 (7) (1999), 22-27. Details
• Park, Hyung Wook, 'Germs, Hosts, and the Origin of Frank MacFarlane Burnet's Concept of "Self" and "Tolerance", 1936-1949', Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 61 (4) (2006), 492-534. Details
• Roberts-Thomson, Peter J.; Jackson, Michael W.; and Gordon, Thomas P., 'A Seminal Monograph: Mackay and Burnet's Autoimmune Diseases', Medical Journal of Australia, 196 (1) (2012), 74-6. Details
• Sankaran, N., 'Mutant Bacteriophages, Frank Macfarlane Burnet and the Changing Nature of 'Genespeak' in the 1930s', Journal of the History of Biology, 43 (2010), 571-599. Details
• Sankaran, N., 'The Pluripotent History of Immunology', Avant: the Journal of the Philosophical-Interdisciplinary Vanguard, 3 (1) (2012), 37-54. Details
• Sankaran, Neeraja, 'Stepping-stones to One-step Growth: Frank Macfarlane Burnet's Role in Elucidating the Viral Nature of the Bacteriophages', Historical Records of Australian Science, 19 (1) (2008), 83-100, https://doi.org/10.1071/HR08004. Details
• Sankaran, Neeraja, 'Mutant Bacteriophages, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and the Changing Nature of "Genespeak" in the 1930s', Journal of the History of Biology (2009). Details
• Sankaran, Neeraja, 'Setting Patterns: the Atypical Choices That Shaped the Career of Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet in Twentieth-Century Australia', Korean Journal for the History of Science, 35 (2013), 343-64. Details
• Wood, I. J., 'Appreciation of Frank Macfarlane Burnet', Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science, 43 (1965), 327-336. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q193550. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/56684432. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan; Manhal, Oscar; O'Sullivan, Lisa; Tropea, Rachel; Sherratt, Tim, Guide to the Records of Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Original online edn, Australian Science Archives Project, Melbourne, 1993, republished 2001 at, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/guides/burn/burn.htm. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan; Manhal, Oscar; O'Sullivan, Lisa; Tropea, Rachel; Sherratt, Tim, Frank Macfarlane Burnet Guide to Records, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, 2001, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/guides/burn/burn.htm. Details
• 'Burnet, Macfarlane (18990903-19850831)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-595643. Details
• 'Awarded honorary LLD, 1962', Honorary degree holders, University of Melbourne, 2023, https://about.unimelb.edu.au/notable-alumni-staff/honorary-degree-holders. Details
• 'Awraded honorary DSc, 1974', Honorary degrees, University of Newcastle, 2023, https://www.newcastle.edu.au/engage/alumni/stories/honorary-degrees. Details

Resource Sections

• 'Burnet, Frank Macfarlane - Ms 98', in Listing of Adolph Basser Library holdings, Australian Academy of Science, 1994, http://www.science.org.au/basser/manuscript-collection/ms098.html. Details
• 'The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1960 'for discovery of acquired immunological tolerance'', in Nobel e-Museum, 1996, http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1960/index.html. Details
• 'Macfarlane Burnet - research on antibodies and the immune system', in The 1997 Australian Science Festival, 1997, http://www.asap.unimelb.edu.au/bsparcs/other/asf_scientists.htm#macfarlane. Details
• McCarthy, Gavan, 'Career Outline', in Guide to the Records of Frank Macfarlane Burnet, Australian Science Archives Project, Melbourne, 1993, http://www.austehc.unimelb.edu.au/guides/burn/FMBP001.htm. Details
• The Nobel Foundation, 'Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet - Biography', in Nobel e-Museum, 1996, http://www.nobel.se/medicine/laureates/1960/burnet-bio.html. Details

See also

• 'Radiation Society of Australia', Nature, 180 (1957), 120-121, https://doi.org/10.1038/180120c0. Details
• Beale, Bob, Engineering a Legacy: Memories of the journey of CSIRO Chemical Engineering (Clayton, Victoria: CSIRO Minerals, 2005), 124 pp. pages 13. Details
• Caro, D. E.; Martin, R. L., 'Leslie Harold Martin 1900-1983', Historical Records of Australian Science, 7 (1) (1987), 97-107. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9870710097. Details
• Dahlitz, Ray, Secular who's who : a biographical directory of freethinkers, secularists, rationalists, humanists and others involved in Australia's secular movement from 1850 onwards (Balwyn, Victoria: R. Dahlitz, 1994), 192 pp. pp.84-85. Details
• Flesch, Juliet and McPhee, Peter, 150 years, 150 stories: brief biographies of one hundred and fifty remarkable people associated with the University of Melbourne (Melbourne: Department of History, University of Melbourne, 2003), 168 pp. Details
• French, E. L.; and Stewart, D.F., 'Lionel Bately Bull, 1889-1978', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (4) (1983), 90-110. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9830540090. Details
• McCann, D. A.; and Batterham, P., 'Australian Genetics: a Brief History', Genetica, 90 (2-3) (1993), 81-114. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01435033. Details
• Norris, K. R., 'Ian Murray Mackerras 1898-1980', Historical Records of Australian Science, 5 (2) (1981), 98-114. https://doi.org/10.1071/HR9810520098. Details
• Rees, A. L. G., 'Ian William Wark 1899-1985', Historical Records of Australian Science, 6 (4) (1987), 533-548. https://doi.org/10.1071HR9870640533. Details