Fellows update

June 26, 2019

Honours and awards to Fellows

Professor David Burke AC FAA FTSE—Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Professor Alan Cowman AC FAA FRS—Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Emeritus Professor Leo Radom AC FAA— Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Professor Linda Richards AO FAA—Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Professor Frances Separovic AO FAA—Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Professor Michelle Simmons AO FAA FRS FTSE—Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia

Professor Mark von Itzstein AO FAA—Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia

More about the Queen’s Birthday honours

Obituaries

Dr Robert Donald Bruce Fraser FAA

14 August 1924 to 15 June 2019

Dr Bruce Fraser was a biophysicist internationally recognised for his contributions to our knowledge of the structure of fibrous proteins, particularly of wool and other keratins.

Dr Fraser studied at Kings College, London and was involved in the work that led to the discovery of the molecular structure of DNA. In 1952, Bruce immigrated to Australia from England with his family, to take up a position at CSIRO in Melbourne. He retired as Chief of the Division (1987) to take up a Fogarty Scholarship at the National Institutes of Health in Washington. On returning to Australia for retirement, Dr Fraser continued his work on fibrous protein structure (including studies of goanna claw keratin) and published many papers.

Dr Fraser was elected to the Academy in 1978. He served on the National Committee for Biophysics and on the Sectional Committee for Biology at the Cellular Level. In 1981 Dr Fraser received the Royal Society of Victoria Research Medal and in 2005 he was awarded the World War Two Veterans Medal for his service as a pilot for the Royal Air Force (1943–46).

Professor Joseph Frank Sambrook FAA FRS

1 March 1939 to 14 June 2019

Professor Joseph Sambrook was one of Australia’s most distinguished molecular biologists. He made many important contributions to molecular and biochemical genetics, studying animal viruses.

Professor Sambrook was elected to the Academy in 2000 and Royal Society of London in 1985. He was internationally renowned for his classic studies on DNA tumour viruses and the molecular biology of eukaryotic cells. He also made major contributions towards understanding intracellular traffic and protein folding and was an influential leader in the field of the molecular genetics of human cancer.

Professor Sambrook completed his PhD in virology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU and his postdoctoral studies at the Salk Institute, USA in the late 1960s. He then worked at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York until 1985, and then at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. Professor Sambrook returned to Australia in 1995 where he was appointed Director of Research at the Peter MacCallum Research Institute and was a Professor in the Department of Pathology, University of Melbourne. He was also the founder and director of the Kathleen Cunningham Consortium for research into familial breast cancer, KConFab, established in 1995.

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