Professor Ian Frazer - 2007 Woolcock Lecture

Professor Ian Frazer was trained as a renal physician and clinical immunologist in Edinburgh before emigrating to Melbourne to pursue an interest in viral immunology and autoimmunity. In 1985 he moved north to Brisbane to take up a teaching post with the University of Queensland. He is now the Director of the University of Queensland’s Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine at the Princess Alexandra Hospital.

In 2005 Professor Frazer won the CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Science. In 2006 he was named Australian of the Year for his development of the human papillomavirus (HPV) cervical cancer vaccines. Professor Frazer has spent the last 20 years working on the vaccine, which causes more than two-thirds of cervical cancer cases. There are half a million new diagnoses of the cancer recorded each year, including around 800 in Australia.

Professor Frazer chairs the Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee of the Queensland Cancer Fund, is a member of the Australian Cancer Research Foundation Medical Research Advisory Committee, and advises the World Health Organisation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on papillomavirus vaccines. In 2007 he was made a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science and was awarded the prestigious Howard Florey Medal for Medical Research.

On October 31, 2007, the Chairman of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, Mr John Hamilton, welcomed Professor Ian Frazer to the third biennial Woolcock Oration. Our 140 guests included: The Honourable Stephen Robertson, Minister for Health; The Honourable Desley Boyle, Minister for Tourism, Regional Development and Industry; Professor Ian Frazer and his wife, Caroline; Mrs Patricia Jackson and her husband Trevor; Dr John De Groot, Chair of the Queensland Community Foundation; Dr Colin Brennan, Chair of The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation  Research Committee; members of the Foundation Board; and medical luminaries, donors, staff and friends of The Prince Charles Hospital and the Foundation.  Professor Frazer’s presentation of the Woolcock Memorial Lecture was an inspirational and humbling experience.

We remember with appreciation and gratitude, Patrick Woolcock who died on August 11, 1990, aged 75 and his wife Dorothy who died on September 26, 2001, aged 79. Because of their great devotion to each other and in appreciation for the care Patrick and Dorothy received at The Prince Charles Hospital, Dorothy left a significant bequest to The Prince Charles Hospital Foundation, known as The Woolcock Bequest.