Author Profile

Professor Donald Metcalf

AC, MD BSc (Med) FRCPA FRACP Hon DSc Syd,
Hon MD Oslo, FAA FRS
Professor Emeritus, The Walter and Eliza Hall
Institute of Medical Research
Melbourne, Australia

Professor Donald Metcalf was born in Mittagong, New South Wales, Australia, and was educated in various country schools. He graduated in medicine from Sydney University in 1953 after completing a BSc (Med) in virology. After an internship at The Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, he joined the staff of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne in 1954 as the Carden Fellow in Cancer Research, a position he continues to hold. From 1965 to 1996, he was Head of the Cancer Research Unit and Assistant Director of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, and in 1996 became Professor Emeritus of The University of Melbourne.

His work at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute has been interspersed with sabbatical years as a Visiting Scientist at Harvard Medical School, Boston; the Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo; the Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, Lausanne; the Radiobiological Institute, Rijswijk, and the University of Cambridge.

Professor Metcalf has been rightfully called “the father of hematopoietic cytokines” for his pioneering work on the control of blood cell formation. In early studies, he discovered the function of the thymus gland in controlling the formation of lymphocytes, and beginning in 1965, codeveloped a series of specialized culture techniques permitting the

growth of the various types of blood cells. These cultures led him and his team to the discovery of the “colony-stimulating factors” (CSFs), hormones that control white blood cell formation and are, therefore, responsible for one’s resistance to infection. His work, with that of others, led to the successful cloning of the genes for all four mouse and human CSFs, and the mass production of these hormones by bacterial, yeast, and other cells. His work provided the pivotal demonstration that the CSFs, when injected into animals, stimulated the formation and regulated the activity of white blood cells. Exploiting this, his collaborators then documented the effectiveness of GM-CSF and G-CSF (two primary white blood cell regulators) when injected into patients. These blood cell regulators are now in extensive clinical use throughout the world as valuable drugs, which can accelerate the regrowth of blood cells following anti-cancer treatment and bone marrow or peripheral blood transplantation.

The corpus of his fundamental and applied research is to be found in more than 400 peer-reviewed scientific papers, over 200 other scientific papers, and nine books. Professor Metcalf has received some of the highest honors in the world of contemporary science. Among them, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia; he was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, a Fellow of the Royal Society, London; and a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. His prizes for research include the Wellcome Prize of the Royal Society (shared), the Bristol-Myers Award for Distinguished Achievement in Cancer Research, the Hammer Prize for Cancer, the Koch Prize of the Federal Republic of Germany, and a Gairdner Foundation International Award of Canada. In addition, Professor Metcalf shared the Alfred P. Sloan Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation; received the Bertner Foundation Award of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, and the Rabbi Shai Shacknai Prize of the Hadassah University, Jerusalem. He is also a recipient of the Albert Lasker Clinical Medical Research Award, the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize of Columbia University, the Jessie Stevenson Kovalenko Medal of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and was the inaugural recipient of the Kantor Family Prize for Cancer Research Excellence from the Hipple Cancer Research Center. In 1995 he received the Ernst Neumann Award, International Society for Experimental Hematology and the

Royal Medal, Royal Society, London. In 1996 he shared the Amgen Australia Prize and The Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, Harvard Medical School. In 1998 he was made an Honorary Member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Society, in 1999 he received the Chiron International Award, National Academy of Medicine, Italy, and in 2000 he received the Victoria Prize, Australia, and was made an Honorary Member of the Polish Society of Hematology. In 2001 he received the ICI Award for Most Cited Author and the Prime Minister’s Prize for Science, Australia. In 2002 he was awarded the President’s Medal by the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology, in 2003 the Centenary Medal (Australia), and in 2004 the Days of Molecular Medicine Foundation Mentorship Award.

Professor Metcalf has earned this growing list of accolades and prizes for he is truly an exceptional scientist. His productivity is legendary, fostered by a work ethic that finds him at his laboratory bench nine hours each day. Of all his manifold accomplishments he takes his greatest reward in knowing that many of his young colleagues to whose careers he mightily contributed, are among the world’s leading laboratory and clinical investigators.

All of this, and more, has been nurtured by the loving support of Josephine, his bride of 50 years. Mother of their four grown daughters, “Jo” (as she is affectionately called) is a tower of strength and a source of perspective for Don, their children and grandchildren, and for all those fortunate to know and thereby to be touched by her. One day we look forward to reading her book.