Frank Macfarlane Burnet Quotes

Australia, Virologist
September 3, 1899 – August, 31, 1985.

Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, OM AK KBE FRS FAA FRSNZ (3 September 1899 – 31 August 1985), usually known as Macfarlane or Mac Burnet, was an Australian virologist best known for his contributions to immunology. He won a Nobel Prize in 1960 for predicting acquired immune tolerance and was best known for developing the theory of clonal selection.

The production of antibody is not the only, nor I believe the most important, manifestation of immunity, but for reasons both historical and of experimental convenience, antibody is likely to remain the touchstone of immunological theory.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Believe
- Important
Serum albumin is a well-defined protein, but no laboratory has yet attempted to ascertain its full chemical structure.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet

I can see no hope at present of such a vaccine being produced... I have adopted a frankly defeatist attitude towards the problem of poliomyelitis and I hope that future developments will prove me wrong... No means of controlling poliomyelitis is at present visible.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Hope
- Future
- Present
Human insulin differs from other mammalian types by having a different C-terminal amino acid on the B chain. The immunological difference between beef insulin and human insulin, which is presumably responsible for the antigenicity of the former in some human beings, is thus limited to very a small portion of the whole molecule.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Different
- Small
I like to think that when Medawar and his colleagues showed that immunological tolerance could be produced experimentally, the new immunology was born.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Tolerance
To advance science is highly honourable, and I believe the institution of the Nobel Prizes has done much to raise the prestige of scientific discovery.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Believe
- Done
- Science
Today and always, there will be an obligation to pass on to the new generation the tradition of liberal scholarship - scientific or in the humanities - and to bring the understanding of things and human actions to everyone.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Today
- Understanding
I can see no practical application of molecular biology to human affairs... DNA is a tangled mass of linear molecules in which the informational content is quite inaccessible.

Frank Macfarlane Burnet
- Tangled