Australia’s own science superstar admits he may be older, but not necessarily wiser. GUSTAV Nossal has lost his appetite. It’s not food he’s snubbing, but any further helpings of global triumph. Arguably Australia’s best-known scientist, thanks to his groundbreaking research into how the body fights infection, Nossal is quietly reflecting on his many successes in science and society.
“When you’re 20, you think you’ll conquer the world, when you’re 30, you know you’ll conquer the world and when you’re 40, you have conquered the world,” he says. “When you’re 80, you know the world doesn’t care much about being conquered.”
Instead, Sir Gustav – or Gus, as he introduces himself – has switched his focus to contributions of a smaller scale. As he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday this week, you’d forgive him for slowing down, but his mind is sharp as ever, firing off opinions on everything from worrying trends in vaccination rates to the rise of social media, and concerns for future generations.
MW last visited Nossal 10 years ago, in the same nondescript office at Melbourne University where he still works. In the decade since, some things haven’t changed. Weekends are still spent playing 18 holes of golf, even if his form is “getting a bit worse every year”. His nine grandchildren, who range in age from eight to 20, still spend time with him and his wife of 55 years, Lyn, at their Cape Schanck weekender or at the Nossals’ Kew home.
Change is more evident in Nossal’s work habits. Now his days are spent reviewing grant requests, speaking to young people who seek his advice, and preparing or reading scientific papers – and he refuses to feel guilty about taking Fridays off. He has halved his international travel to just four or so trips a year.
“People think that’s a bit of joke, but apart from once a year when my wife can come for a holiday, I’m a bit sick of international travel,” says Nossal, who has clocked more than 220 overseas trips.
Once on countless boards (he’s a former president of the Australian Academy of Science), he now concentrates mostly on his role on the advisory committee of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which funds the immunisation of children in developing countries. But he still makes time to deliver numerous public addresses. “I find it hard to say no,” he admits, “but I tend to pick and choose a little bit now. I do two or three Rotaries and schools a year, and then lots and lots of ad hoc things.”
There’s a journal titled Current Opinion in Immunology on his desk, but Nossal admits he has let his technical reading slip. And, he says, he no longer feels shockingly guilty about doing less homework than he once did. “The satchel’s [now] a bit lighter when it comes home.”
Not that Nossal has ever considered himself a workaholic. “I’ve always been a hard worker, but I’ve not been obsessive,” he says. “I’ve long held the view that a 55- to 60-hour week is enough and that an 80- to 90-hour week begins to become counter-productive. Now you’ve got emails, iPhones or BlackBerrys, I sometimes get the impression that my kids [there are four] are never off work. I would personally find that discombobulating.”
Unsurprising ly, he is not a devotee of Twitter or Facebook. “I don’t want more communication – if anything, I want less. I’m an old dinosaur. I have a mobile phone, but I’ve got no desire to promulgate my thoughts to some select group of 20 or 50 or 500 people. If I’ve got something important to say, I’ll either come to you immediately or I’ll write an essay or a paper and get it published. Now that’s old-fashioned, but it’s worked well for me and I don’t particularly want to change it at this late stage.’’
Born in pre-war Austria, Nossal fled the Nazi regime with his mother and father, a merchant banker, in 1939. Arriving here aged eight, he spoke no English but eight years later he graduated dux of his school. He studied medicine at the University of Sydney and moved to Melbourne, age 26, to work with one of his science heroes, Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet, at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. He succeeded Burnet as the institute’s director, from 1965 to 1996.
During that time he received numerous accolades; a knighthood for his work in immunology, a Companion of the Order of Australia and the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. Nossal’s discovery of how white blood cells make antibody molecules that protect the body from infection was the forerunner of Nobel Prize-winning work used in the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases.
In 1997 he was named one of Australia’s Living National Treasures, and was Australian of the Year in 2000. Two years later, his face appeared on a postage stamp. His contributions to society weren’t restricted to science. From 1997 to 2000 he served as deputy chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation.
More recently, two buildings were named in his honour: the Nossal Institute for Global Health at Melbourne University and Nossal High School in Berwick –Victoria’s first co-ed selective government high school for year 9 to 12 students.
“It was a tremendous honour and a very big thrill,” Nossal says. “On all my visits out to the school, I’ve been immensely impressed with the architecture of the building, the enthusiasm and quality of the headmaster and his staff, but most of all, with the students. For kids who live in outlying suburbs, it’s the chance to compete for a place in a selective high school when they mightn’t be able to travel into town.”
Nossal says he is impressed with today’s youth. “I am literally amazed at how frequently young people ask to come and see me and then tell me they want to work in international health or Aboriginal health, and ask what steps they should take. Their motivation is strong. I’m not suggesting that every single Australian kid is an idealist, but there are certainly enough of them out there to make a very big difference in the world.”
There’s plenty of things he’d love them to make a difference to, including a lack of recent advancement in vaccination. In 2003, when asked what problem in his field he’d like to solve, he suggested a vaccine for babies to cover all major infectious diseases. Eight years later, he concedes that science is no closer to discovering it. He says while vaccines have undoubtedly been the most cost-effective public health tool in history, they have also been a victim of their own success. “People in industrialised countries?…?have forgotten the wards at Fairfield hospital, full of polio kids only breathing with the aid of a respirator; the big epidemic of measles, with the nasty complications of that disease. They’ve even forgotten about the mumps and the chicken pox because they’re so much more uncommon.
He worries that as such diseases have largely vanished from public consciousness, complacency has set in. “People who, for one reason or another, have got it in their heads that vaccines are not a good thing, can omit to vaccinate their kids more or less with impunity.”
Nossal is also concerned about the issues of resources and population. He says the global population is expected to hit at about nine billion by 2050 and the most recent United Nations projections suggest it might top 10 billion by 2100. “I don’t believe in the prophets of doom scenarios,” he says “but there is no question that in time the amount of available land and water will be a limiting factor. Climate change makes all these matters worse.”
Nossal argues that Australia will have to play its part in this global problem. “We will have to be a clever country, very much dependent on a skilled, able and positive-thinking workforce.”
The autumn years clearly agree with Nossal, who is still sharp as a tack and generous with his time, no matter who requests it – be it a political leader, a journalist or a family member.
“One of my grandsons asked me, ‘Grandpa, what does it feel like to be nearly 80?’.” Nossal smiles, obviously not fazed by the milestone. “I said, ‘I don’t feel old in myself, yet I know I am old.’ There’s no way you can say that 80 isn’t old. You think you should be a lot wiser, but on the whole, you probably aren’t. You’re a bit more experienced, but I think the very big questions in life that puzzle one – Why are we here? Where do we come from? Where are we going? – are still as impenetrable as when you were 40 or 20. Of course you still puzzle over them, but I don’t think you come that much closer to a resolution.”
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