Gus Nossal

Radical Australia

What a treat to have Gus Nossal on the show this week. He joined us on the phone from his home at the last minute. What a trooper. For the uninitiated, Gus is an Australian legend who has been bestowed with many titles and was on the telly all the time back in the day as scientific public intellectual. Gus says that public communication is vital. He was born and raised in Vienna during the 1930s before his family came to Australia on a long boat voyage which was very exciting for young Gus. He always wanted to be a doctor and studied medicine, landing in theoretical virology. His PhD supervisor was Frank Macfarlane Burnet, then he went off to Stanford during a very exciting time in medical science. Gus says he spent hours and hours a day at the microscope. In 1962 he returned to Australia and became the Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. Gus' big interest was in immunological tolerance and its impacts on the fields of transplants and auto-immune diseases. We'll leave the rest of the story to Gus who recently celebrated his 93rd birthday. Thank-you very much for the chat, Gus, and for all you have done for global health.