Ramaciotti for Frazer, Burnet for Kile

Professor Ian Frazer is having a rather good year and it just keeps getting better. Last night, he added the well regarded Ramaciotti Medal for Excellence in Biomedical Research to numerous other awards, including the $300,000 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science and the international Balzan Prize for Preventative Medicine.

Last year he won the Howard Florey Medal, the 2007 Clunies Ross Medal and the 2006 Australian of the year.

The Ramaciotti, awarded by the private Ramaciotti Foundations, is worth $50,000 and is awarded to researchers who have been supported by the foundations in the past. Frazer received initial funding from the foundations in the late 80s and 90s when he was beginning his cervical cancer vaccine project.

The highly regarded Burnet Prize has been awarded to Dr Benjamin Kile from the molecular medicine division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute. WEHI makes the award to early career researchers every year, funded through a bequest from Sir Macfarlane Burnet.

Kile researchers haematopoiesis and with colleagues identified the molecular pathways controlling platelet lifespan. He was also part of the team that discovered the oncogene ERG.