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PRIME MINISTER'S PRIZE FOR SCIENCE AWARDED TO PROFESSOR FRANK FENNER
21 August 2002

The President and Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science congratulate Professor Fenner on the award of the Prime Minister's Prize for Science. Celebrating his lifetime achievements in the area of virology, Professor Fenner received the prize from the Prime Minister at a ceremony held in the Great Hall of Parliament House last night.  

Professor Fenner's research career began after World War II when Sir Macfarlane Burnet offered him a position at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research.  There he examined how the ectromelia virus spread in mice. This early research into the spread of viruses in mammals led to extensive work in determining how chickenpox and smallpox spread throughout human communities.  In the 1960s he was internationally recognised as a pox virus expert. He was appointed chair of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication and began his association with the World Health Organization which he continues today. His work towards the eradication of smallpox led to the award of the prestigious Japan Prize in Preventative Medicine in 1988 and the Albert Einstein Science Award in 2000. His groundbreaking research into myxomatosis during the 1950s and 1960s resulted in the control of the rabbit population in Australia. In 1995 Professor Fenner was awarded the Royal Society's Copley Medal for his research on myxoma and pox viruses and their relationship with the host in causing disease.

From his appointment as the founding Professor of Microbiology at the Australian National University's John Curtin School of Medical Research in 1949, Professor Fenner became the Director of the JCSMR from 1967 to 1973. He left that position to become the founding Director of the ANU's Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies. Professor Fenner retired in 1979 but continued his research as a Visiting Fellow with JCSMR in 1980. He continues to work with such organisations as the World Health Organization and participates in international meetings such as the International Congress of Virology and Microbiology. In 2002, Professor Fenner received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Ian Clunies Ross Foundation.

Throughout his career, Professor Fenner's late wife Bobbie was both an assistant, working with him in the early days as a technical assistant, and a companion, sharing an avid interest in gardening and entertaining students and scholars from around the world. In addition to the professional awards Professor Fenner has received, he and his wife also have had the distinction of having the ANU's Fenner Hall named in recognition of their dedication to both medical research and to the scientific community.

Professor Fenner has been interviewed as part of the Academy's Video Histories of Australian Scientists project. An edited transcript of the interview is available at http://www.science.org.au/scientists/ff.htm.

The Academy also extends its congratulations to Ruth Dircks, winner of the inaugural Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Secondary Schools. Ruth began her association with the Academy in 1981 during the production of the third edition of the Academy's landmark biology text, The Web of Life. She continued to work with the Academy as project director of two further Academy texts, Disease and Society and Biology: The Common Threads. In 1990 Ruth Dircks was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for her contributions to science education and in 1991 received a Distinguished Service Award from the Australian Science Teachers Association. She is currently teaching at Dungog High School in New South Wales.