Tribute to Prof. Frank Fenner an Eminent Virologist Who Contributed for Eradication of Small Pox (1914–2010)

Abstract

All most all virologists working in the field of animal virus across the world are familiar with the name of Prof. Frank Fenner. The demise of this great Australian virologist on 22nd November 2010 at his home town in Canberra is a great loss to the human society. He is the eminent animal virologist whose contribution made it possible to eradicate small pox from the earth. At the same time Frank Fenner is a popular name among medical and veterinary professionals for the highly referred virology text book ‘‘Medical Virology’’ and ‘‘The Biology of Animal Viruses’’, written by him. Frank Fenner was born on 21st December 1914 in a small town at Ballart near Melbourne, Victoria. Fenner wanted to become a geologist. However, as desired by his father Charles Fenner, a school teacher, he studied medicine instead, graduating from the University of Adelaide in 1938. Subsequently he obtained MD in 1942 from the University of Adelaide. Between 1942 and 1946 he served in Egypt and Papua New Guinea as an army officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps, where he worked on the malarial parasite. For his work in combating malaria in Papua New Guinea he was made a member of The Order of British Empire. While stationed at Queensland he came in contact with Captain Ellen (Bobbie) Roberts, an Australian army nurse who served as part time assistant in his Laboratory, to whom he married and the relationship lasted until her death in 1995. Following war time service of Frank, Macfarlane Burnet offered him a job at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne to follow up ectromelia which was subsequently named as mouse pox and turned really to be small pox of mice closely related to vaccinia. This fact about ectromelia remained unknown to scientific community till Topley, Wilson and Greenwood in Britain published some classic wok on the experimental epidemiology of ectromelia. Frank continued work on pathogenesis of ectromelia and published his paper in Lancet in 1948. In 1949 Burnet and Fenner published a book ‘‘The production of antibody’’ the main theme of which described self versus non self theory of antibody synthesis and was the basis for Nobel Prize award to Burnet in 1960. This ground-breaking work led Frank to a fellowship in 1949 at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (Now Rockefeller University) in New York, where Fenner worked on a unique strain of tubercle bacilli that did not cause any lesions on internal organ due to its temperature sensitive character but caused Buruli ulcer (skin lesions). Upon his return to Australia in 1949, he joined as Professor of Microbiology at the John Curtain School of Medical Research, a newly created post graduate research institute under Australian National University in Canberra, and continued his work on host resistance against myxoma virus that causes rabbit pox. He T. Goswami (&) Section of Immunology, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar 243122, U.P., India e-mail: goswami.tapas@gmail.com