One of Australia’s most prolific scientists, Traralgon-born Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet will be memorialised at a dinner and evening lecture in his home town on Wednesday 18 October.
Organised by the Order of Australia Association, Gippsland Regional Group, the speaker this year will be Professor Miles Prince AM, an internationally recognised haematologist and professor of medicine at both Melbourne and Monash Universities.
The title of his address is to be Harnessing the immune system for curing blood cancers: a ‘climate change’ moment.
Professor Miles is director of cancer immunology and molecular oncology at Epworth Healthcare and a haematologist at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.
Further, he holds translational grants in epigenetics at Melbourne Genomics Health Alliance, and holds large US and European research grants.
Order of Australia Association Gippsland Regional Group chairman Doug Caulfield, OAM said his group was honoured to organise the lecture again this year.
“Given Traralgon’s relationship with Sir Frank, one of seven children of his family born in Traralgon, and regarded as one of Australia’s foremost scientists, it has been our mission to highlight him and showcase those that follow in his footsteps,” he said.
“Through his work, he advanced the understanding of significant viral diseases including herpes, poliomyelitis, encephalitis and bacterial diseases including Q fever.”
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine on 20 October 1960 and was also the first Australian of the Year.
The venue for the dinner and lecture is at Dal Mondo Reception Centre, just metres from Sir Frank’s statue in Traralgon’s Post Office Place.
Sir Frank MacFarlane Burnet is among notable Gippslanders to feature in the book Calling Gippsland Home: Famous Men and Women of Gippsland,by Jim Connolly in Warragul, which will be launched on 1 December.
Ticket for the Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet Annual Address 2023 can be booked at orderofaustraliagippsland.org/events/event/sir-frank-macfarlane-burnet-annual-address-2023
