Professor Ian Frazer AC (b. 1953), immunologist, is co-inventor of the technology enabling the HPV vaccines – the first cancer vaccine – used worldwide to help prevent cervical cancer. Born in Scotland, Frazer studied medicine at Edinburgh University and trained as a renal physician and clinical immunologist. In 1981, he emigrated to Australia to research viral immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, where he became particularly interested in human papilloma viruses (HPV). After taking up a Senior Lecturer position with the University of Queensland, he continued his research into the link between HPV and cervical cancer. Frazer first started developing a vaccine for HPV along with his colleague, the late Dr Jian Zhou, in the 1990s. The TGA approved Gardasil in 2006, and a year later, Australia became the first country to roll out a national HPV vaccination program. In recognition of his work in developing the HPV vaccine, he was named Australian of the Year in 2006. As Emeritus Professor in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Queensland, Frazer leads a research group working at the Translational Research Institute on the immunobiology of epithelial cancers. He heads a biotechnology company, Jingang Medicine (Aus) Pty Ltd, working on new vaccine technologies, and is a board member of several companies and not for profit organisations. Frazer was the inaugural president of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and a member of the Australian National Science and Technology Council. He chairs the Australian Medical Research Advisory Board of the Medical Research Future Fund. In 2008 Frazer was recipient of the Prime Ministers Prize for Science and the Balzan Prize, and in 2012 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of London.
