Frank Fenner was born on 21 December 1914 in Ballarat, Victoria, the second of five children to Charles and Peg Fenner. His father obtained a science degree at Melbourne University while studying at teacher’s college, and he became a lecturer at and then Principal of the Ballarat School of Mines. In 1916 Charles Fenner was appointed Superintendent of Technical Education in South Australia, and the family moved to Adelaide. For years he also supplemented the family income by publishing articles on science in popular weekly publications. Frank Fenner has stated in interviews that his interest in science was inspired by his father.

Frank attended Thebarton Technical High School and then Adelaide High School. He commenced studying for a medical degree at the University of Adelaide in 1933. While he was studying at university Frank was introduced to the staff of the South Australian Museum by his father and he began attending meetings of the Royal Society of South Australia. In the second year of his degree Frank began to conduct physical anthropology research under the guidance of Frederic Wood-Jones (AA 379). He also acted as physical anthropologist on the Board for Anthropological Research (BAR) expeditions to the Diamantina region (August 1934), Nepabunna (May-June 1937), and Ooldea (August 1939).

Frank Fenner completed his medical degree in early 1940. At the outbreak of World War II he obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine, and he was assigned to conduct laboratory work in Syria after malaria was found to be a significant disease affecting Australian forces in the Middle-East. He returned to Australia and continued his malariological research in a Cairns hospital laboratory before being assigned as a field malariologist in Papua New Guinea. While he was working in Cairns he met his wife, Ellen Margaret ‘Bobbie’ Roberts, who was a nurse specialising in direct blood transfusions. They married in 1944 and had a daughter, Marilyn, in 1950.

With the war coming to an end, Fenner decided to pursue his research into infectious diseases. In 1946 he accepted an offer to study as a Francis Haley Research Fellow with McFarlane Burnet at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute at the University of Melbourne. There, with his wife working as a volunteer laboratory assistant, he conducted research into pox viruses for two years. In 1948 and 1949 Fenner was a Rockefeller Foundation Travelling Fellow, studying various mycobacteria with Rene Dubos at the Rockefeller Institute in New York.

At the completion of his Rockefeller Fellowship, Fenner was offered a position as Professor of Microbiology in the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University (ANU), which was being established at the time. As a Professor at the new medical research school, Fenner returned to studying viruses and viral genetics, particularly after the outbreak of Myxomatosis in Australia in December 1950. In 1967 Fenner was appointed Director of the John Curtin School of Medical Research, a position he held until 1973. During this time he was also a member of a committee convened by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to identify animal reservoirs of smallpox virus, and in 1977 he became the Chairman of the WHO’s Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication. In 1980 Fenner announced to the World Health Assembly that smallpox had been eradicated globally.

In 1973 Professor Fenner was appointed Director of the new Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES) at the ANU. He remained as Director of the Centre until 1979.

Frank Fenner has been elected to the fellowship of a number of faculties and academies, including Foundation Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (1954), Fellow of the Royal Society (1958), and Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences (1977).

During his career, Professor Fenner received many awards, including the Britannica Australia Award for Medicine (1967), the Australia and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science Medal (1980), the World Health Organization Medal (1988), the Japan Prize (1988), the Senior Australian Achiever of the Year (1999), the Albert Einstein World Award for Science (2000), and the Prime Minister's Science Prize (2002).

Some of the other honours that Fenner has received include being made Member of the Order of the British Empire for his work in malariology (1945), Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George for medical research (1976), and Companion of the Order of Australia for service to medical science, public health and the environment (1989).

In 2003 a building at the ANU was named in Professor Fenner's honour. The Frank Fenner building is used by the Faculty of Science and the new Medical School. The establishment of a medical school at the ANU was something that Fenner had worked toward for a number of years.

Fenner died on 22 November 2010.

A more comprehensive list of Frank Fenner’s academic and professional achievements can be found at the Australian National University website, at: http://jcsmr.anu.edu.au/about/fenner/index.php