Gerald W Both, PhD

Dr Gerald Both graduated from the University of Adelaide with a PhD in Biochemistry in 1974.  He was awarded a Post-doctoral fellowship at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology where he contributed to seminal studies on the structure and function of the m7-G cap at the 5’end of mRNA molecules. In 1976 he took up a Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship at the John Curtin School, ANU where he initiated studies on antigenic drift in influenza viruses using pioneering techniques in molecular biology.  These continued in 1978 when he was recruited to the CSIRO in Sydney. Over the next thirty years he (1) used innovative molecular approaches to conduct structure and function studies on the double stranded RNA genome segments of rotaviruses, (2) characterized and developed a unique ovine atadenovirus as a vector for human gene therapy and (3) gained approval to conduct a phase I clinical trial for prostate cancer.