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Sir Geoffrey Badger was interviewed in 1997 for the Interviews with Australian scientists series. By viewing the interviews in this series, or reading the transcripts and extracts, your students can begin to appreciate Australia's contribution to the growth of scientific knowledge.
The following summary of Badger's career sets the context for the extract chosen for these teachers notes. The extract highlights Badger's work on medicinal compounds – cancer-inhibiting substances and an anti-malaria sulpha drug. Use the focus questions that accompany the extract to promote discussion among your students.
Geoffrey Badger was born in Port Augusta, South Australia in 1916. His family moved to Geelong, Victoria when he was 4 years old and he attended North Geelong School, the Geelong College Preparatory School and Geelong College until the Intermediate Certificate.
Following school he attended the Gordon Institute of Technology at Geelong and completed a Diploma of Industrial Chemistry. He then went to Trinity College at the University of Melbourne where he studied chemistry, receiving an MSc in 1938.
Badger then went to the Chester Beatty Research Institute at the Royal Cancer Hospital, receiving his PhD in 1940 for his research into cancer-inhibiting compounds. In 1941 he started work as a research chemist with ICI in Manchester, UK. Here he was responsible for the production of the first sulphamerazine (sulphadimethyldiazine), a sulpha drug with additional anti-malarial activity that was desperately needed for the troops in Burma. He then worked in Edinburgh, UK, for the remainder of World War II, as an instructor in navigation in the Royal Navy.
In 1946 Badger took up a position at the University of Glasgow, then in 1949 he moved to the University of Adelaide as a senior lecturer and was appointed professor of organic chemistry in 1955. In 1964 Badger took up an appointment on the Executive of the CSIRO. In 1966 he returned to the University of Adelaide as deputy vice-chancellor for 6 months before being appointed vice-chancellor, a position he held for ten years.
Badger was elected to the Australian Academy of Science in 1960, and was president from 1974 to 1978. He argued persuasively for the establishment of a body to advise government on science policy – arguments that led eventually to the formation of the Australian Science and Technology Council (ASTEC), of which he was the first chairman (1975 to 1982).
Badger is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and was president of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) and the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS).
Badger was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1975, for ‘distinguished service in the fields of university administration, education and science’. In 1979 he was knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
Researching the inhibition of cancer
Interviewer: What was the topic of your research and your thesis?
The institute had been working on cancer-producing compounds, isolating the cancer-producing substances from coal tar. By the time I got there, although there was a bit of that work still to be done, people were beginning to think that if some chemicals would produce cancer, maybe other chemicals would inhibit its growth. So my first paper, written with J.W. Cook, was entitled 'The synthesis of growth inhibitory compounds, Part 1'. I got up to about five or six parts in that series, on synthesising substances which tested both for cancer-producing activity and for inhibition of tumours. Taking mice and rats which had been injected with a little bit of cancerous tissue and had developed tumours, we injected compounds to see whether the tumour size regressed. It was a very primitive method of testing but it did show that it was going to be possible.
Is it necessary to ingest the coal tar substance in order to develop cancer?
No. People working in coal tar used to get skin-cancers, and cancer of the scrotum was found especially in chimney sweeps. Unless you wash soot off, it's on your skin for a long time. The main substance in coal tar had been isolated by the Chester Beatty people before I arrived and a lot of work had been done to show how cancer-producing that was and how many related substances were also cancer-producing. The aim was to find out what causes the substance to be cancer-producing.
When you're looking for the reverse effect you've got a huge range of organic chemicals to choose from. How did you even begin to find something that would inhibit cancerous growth?
People all over the world were beginning to inject jolly near anything that could be extracted (from plants, trees and so on) into mice with tumours, to see whether the tumours regressed. It was a matter of trial and error, but there was sense in what we were trying to do in London, which was to modify cancer-producing substances to make them act in reverse.
Using science in the war effort
While you were in London war in fact did break out, in 1939.
Yes. During that time some volunteer ladies used to put on a luncheon in the hospital, for people from the hospital and from the institute. One of my institute colleagues and I were sitting having our lunch one day when a lady opened the shutters and said, 'For anyone who is interested, France has fallen.' Deadly silence.
Being in one of the so-called reserved occupations, you completed your period in London University. But then in 1941 you went to ICI as a research chemist, didn't you?
Yes. Since I was by now a scientist (with a PhD, even) I thought I ought to do something for the war effort and I wrote to ICI, in the Manchester suburb of Blackley, to ask whether they could use my services. I was appointed at 325 pounds a year, on the strength of which I got married. My wife, Edith, and I had our honeymoon in Huddersfield, where I went around another ICI factory trying to learn a little bit about industrial chemistry while she was left wondering what to do. Anyway, after three weeks there we rented a furnished house in Manchester, where we had three years.
I had indicated that I was interested in medicinals, and at that time there was a need for anti-malarials. One of my first jobs was not in the speculative research section but the process labs, beginning to work out the process for manufacturing a hundredweight of sulphamerazine, as it was called – sulphadimethyldiazine, in formal terms. That was not only a sulpha drug but had some anti-malarial activity, and apparently the boys in Burma were screaming out for it. So I made the first ton of this medicinal, and did several other things while I was there. But I thought that I ought to do something a bit more active.
Focus questions
Select activities that are most appropriate for your lesson plan or add your own. You can also encourage students to identify key issues in the preceding extract and devise their own questions or topics for discussion.
anti-malarial
cancer-producing substances
growth inhibitory compounds
industrial chemistry
sulpha drug
sulphadimethyldiazine
tumour
These notes were developed from material supplied by Robin Groves and Elaine Horne.
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