Frank Fenner | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Frank Johannes Fenner 21 December 1914 |
| Died | 22 November 2010(2010-11-22) (aged 95)[1] |
| Other names | Frank John Fenner (after 1938) |
| Education | University of Adelaide |
| Occupation | Virology |
| Employer | Australian National University |
| Known for | Eradication ofsmallpox Control of Australia'srabbit plague |
| Spouse | Ellen Margaret Bobbie Roberts |
| Parent(s) | Albert Charles Fenner and Emma Louise "Peggy" Hirt |
Frank John Fenner (21 December 1914 – 22 November 2010) was an Australian scientist with a distinguished career in the field ofvirology. His two greatest achievements are cited as overseeing the eradication ofsmallpox,[2] and the attempted control of Australia'srabbit plague through the introduction ofMyxoma virus.[3]
TheAustralian Academy of Science awards annually the prestigiousFenner Medal for distinguished research in biology by a scientist under 40 years of age.[4][5]
Frank Johannes Fenner was born inBallarat in 1914. The family moved toAdelaide,South Australia in November 1916. He attendedRose Park Primary School andThebarton Technical School. He attended theUniversity of Adelaide, where he earned degrees in medicine and surgery in 1938. That year, uneasy about Hitler's rise, he legally changed his middle name from Johannes (the first name of his German-born paternal grandfather) to John.[6]
In May 1937, Fenner was a member of an Adelaide University anthropological expedition toNepabunna Mission in the northernFlinders Ranges inSouth Australia led byJ. B. Cleland, which also includedCharles P. Mountford asethnologist and photographer, as well as botanistThomas Harvey Johnston and others.[7]
From 1940 to 1946 he was a captain and Major in theAustralian Army Medical Corps with service in Australia,Palestine,Egypt,New Guinea andBorneo,[6] as medical officer in field ambulance andCasualty Clearing Station,pathologist to general hospital andmalariologist. For his work in combatingmalaria in Papua New Guinea he was made a Member of theOrder of the British Empire in 1945.[8][9]
Following his war-time service he was recruited byFrank Macfarlane Burnet to work at theWalter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. Initially they worked onsmallpox in mice, for which he coined the term "mousepox", and later on thegenetics ofpoxvirus.
In 1949, he received a fellowship to study at theRockefeller Institute for Medical Research in New York City, he worked onmycobacterium Bairnsdale bacillus, which causesBuruli ulcer, the third most important mycobacterial disease worldwide aftertuberculosis andleprosy. Here he worked with and was influenced byRené Dubos, who is one of the claimed originators of the phrase "Think Globally, Act Locally".[citation needed]
Returning to Australia in 1949, he was appointed professor ofmicrobiology at the newJohn Curtin School of Medical Research at theAustralian National University,Canberra. Here he began studying viruses again, in particular themyxoma virus.[citation needed]
Throughout the 1940s and 1950s Australia had severerabbit plagues. Fenner's work on the myxoma virus showed that initially it killed rabbits in 9 to 11 days and was 99.5% lethal. Under heavy selection pressure, the few rabbits that survived developed resistance, which meant that the pest was never completely eradicated, but their numbers were reduced. Prior to the release of the virus as abiological control for the rabbits, Fenner,Frank Macfarlane Burnet andIan Clunies Ross famously injected themselves with myxoma virus, to prove it was not dangerous for humans.
From 1967 to 1973 Fenner was Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. In 1977, he was named the chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication, the same year the last known case of naturally transmitted smallpox occurred inSomalia. Fenner announced theeradication of smallpox to the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980.[6] This success story is regarded as the greatest achievement of theWorld Health Organization. Before its eradication, smallpox was one of the world's most virulent viruses, responsible for millions of deaths, and leaving many of the victims who survived with disfiguring scars for life.
Fenner had an abiding interest in the environment, and was the foundation Director of theCentre for Resources and Environmental Studies at theANU (1973), where he worked until his retirement in 1979, and which became part of theFenner School of Environment and Society in 2007.[10] He was a keen supporter of Australia having an ecologically, socially sustainable population. He was emeritus professor at the John Curtin School of Medical Research.
In June 2010, he predicted in an interview withThe Australian theextinction of the human race within a century, primarily as the result ofhuman overpopulation,environmental degradation andclimate change.[6][11][12]
He died in Canberra on the morning of 22 November 2010 after a brief illness, and days after the birth of his first great-grandchild.[13]
In 1944 Fenner met Bobbie Roberts. Ellen Margaret 'Bobbie' Roberts was a trained midwife and nurse. During World War II she worked onmalaria with the Australian Army Nursing Service and through her work met Fenner.[14] Shortly after they met they married in a Catholic ceremony (despite Fenner being an atheist).[15] While keen to have children, the couple were infertile and with Bobbie having a hysterectomy in 1949 they decided to adopt. They subsequently adopted two children. Marilyn Aldus Fenner was born on 27 June 1950. Her biological parents were unknown. Victoria Fenner (born 1 March 1943) was adopted later at the request of her father (Fenner's younger brother Tom) after the death in a fire of Victoria's mother (Beverley Slaney).[16]
On 30 March 1958, Victoria Fenner shot and killed herself, as part of a supposed suicide pact with another child,Catherine Webb, who provided the rifle and bullets. The coronial inquiry heard she had been passing through a period of extreme mental and spiritual disturbance and the coroner declared her death a suicide.[17] Fenner himself was unable to fathom a motive, other than she was upset from readingNeville Shute's book,On the Beach.[18]
Bobbie Fenner was diagnosed with cancer in 1989 and eventually died in 1994. Marilyn Fenner and her family then moved into the family home and looked after her father until his death.[19]
Of the many honours Fenner received throughout his career, there are the following:
