Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research
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The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research is one of Australia's foremost medical research institutes. Located in Parkville, Melbourne, it is closely associated with the University of Melbourne and the Royal Melbourne Hospital.
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[edit] History
The institute was founded in 1915 using funds from a trust established by the family of Eliza and Walter Russell Hall. It owed its origin to the inspiration of Harry Brookes Allen. It was Australia’s first medical research institute and adopted a crest bearing the Latin inscription Fiat Lux – Let there be light.
Dr Sydney Patterson was the first director, between 1920 and 1923, and was followed by Charles Kellaway (1923-1944).
Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet was the institute director between 1944 and 1965, and he brought the institute to international prominence for virological research, especially influenza, and then for immunology. Such was the nature of Sir Macfarlane’s achievement that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960.
Sir Gustav Nossal succeeded Frank Macfarlane Burnet as director in 1965, aged 35. Under his stewardship, the Institute grew in size and scope, with its scientists making important discoveries in the control of immune system responses, cell cycle regulation and malaria.
Since 1996, it has been led by Professor Suzanne Cory.
[edit] Current research
Currently the work of the Institute is centered on cancer, the immune system, autoimmune diseases – such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis – malaria, neural development, genetics and drug discovery.
[edit] References
- Max Charlesworth, Lyndsay Farrall, Terry Stokes and David Turnbull (1989). Life among the scientists: An Anthropological Study of an Australian Scientific Community. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-554999-6.
