French Academy recognises Cory achievements

Victorian immunologist Prof Suzanne Cory has become the first Australian woman inducted into the French Academy of Sciences.

The honour sees the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute director join her predecessor Sir Gustav Nossal and former Howard Florey Institute director Prof Derek Denton as an associate foreign member of the academy.

Her election is recognition of her medical work, which has included the discovery in the 1970s, with husband Prof Jerry Adams, that fragmented antibody genes could combine in a virtually unlimited number of ways to fight new infections.

Since the 1980s her focus has been in genetic mistakes that cause cancer, discovering that damage to chromosomes could activate cancer-promoting genes.

Her team has identified a gene that inhibits the normal process of programmed cell death, leading to a new therapeutic possibilities and different ways of thinking about tumour growth.

In typical Australian scientist style, Cory did not reflect on her election as being a purely personal achievement, but as "a tribute to the many talented colleagues I have had the privilege to work with, including several from France".

The French Academy of Sciences was founded in Paris in 1666 during the reign of King Louis XIV to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research.

Its appointment of associate foreign members is a reflection of the academy's emphasis on establishing links with the international science community.