Page 5786 - Week 14 - Tuesday, 7 December 2010
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11 days of exposure. As we know, some rabbits survived and other methods have since been introduced. But the days of the land being so ravaged that Australia needed rabbit-proof fences are now long gone.
In 1967 Professor Fenner was appointed Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research. This was when he embarked on his second great achievement, the eradication of smallpox from the world. While at the ANU he was also Chairman of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. Smallpox was a dangerous, deadly and disfiguring affliction that claimed millions of lives throughout history and left millions more permanently scarred if they were able to survive the ravages of the disease.
By 1977 the last known case of naturally transmitted smallpox occurred in Somalia. At a World Health Organisation meeting in May 1980 Professor Fenner announced the eradication of the disease worldwide. This achievement has been recorded as the greatest achievement of the World Health Organisation.
Listing all of Professor Fenner’s other awards, honours and achievements is a task in itself, but even a shortened list is remarkably impressive. He was awarded an MBE in 1945; elected as a foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1954; made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1958; awarded a CMG in 1976; made a foreign associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences in 1977; awarded the Japan Prize (Preventative Medicine) in 1988; made a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1989; awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in 1995; awarded the Albert Einstein World Award of Science in 2000; awarded the Clunies Ross Lifetime Contribution to National Science and Technology Award in 2002; awarded the World Health Association Medal, the Mueller Medal, in 1964 and the ANZAAS Medal in 1980; awarded the ANZAC Peace Prize; awarded the Matthew Flinders Medal and the Britannica Australia Award for Medicine. In 2002 he was awarded the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science and was named ACT Senior Australian of the Year in 2005.
It is an astonishing list but it is not all that his legacy has left behind. Both the Frank Fenner building in the ANU Medical School and a residential college, Fenner Hall, are named in honour of Frank Fenner. The Frank Fenner Medal is awarded annually for the most outstanding PhD thesis submitted in the John Curtin School of Medical Research. I could not possibly list his publications. The ANU website lists over 300 publications and 23 books.
Professor Fenner was also a passionate environmentalist, setting up a Centre for Resources and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University as early as 1973 where he held the position of director until 1979 and which became part of the Fenner School of Environment and Society in 2007.
My last words about Professor Fenner come from another eminent Australian scientist, Sir Gustav Nossal, who said, “What a life, what a career, what generosity of spirit with his many contributions to the Australian Academy of Science. We shall not see his like again.”
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