- About
- Strategic Plan
- Structure
- Governance
- Scientific divisions
- ACRF Cancer Biology and Stem Cells
- ACRF Chemical Biology
- Advanced Technology and Biology
- Bioinformatics
- Blood Cells and Blood Cancer
- Clinical Translation
- Epigenetics and Development
- Immunology
- Infectious Diseases and Immune Defence
- Inflammation
- Personalised Oncology
- Population Health and Immunity
- Structural Biology
- Ubiquitin Signalling
- Laboratory operations
- Funding
- Annual reports
- Human research ethics
- Scientific integrity
- Institute life
- Career opportunities
- Business Development
- Collaborators
- Suppliers
- Publications repository
- Awards
- Discoveries
- Centenary 2015
- History
- Contact us
- Research
- Diseases
- Cancer
- Development and ageing
- Immune health and infection
- Research fields
- Research technologies
- Research centres
- People
- Alistair Brown
- Anne-Laure Puaux
- Assoc Prof Joanna Groom
- Associate Profesor Ian Majewski
- Associate Professor Aaron Jex
- Associate Professor Andrew Webb
- Associate Professor Chris Tonkin
- Associate Professor Daniel Gray
- Associate Professor Diana Hansen
- Associate Professor Edwin Hawkins
- Associate Professor Ethan Goddard-Borger
- Associate Professor Gemma Kelly
- Associate Professor Grant Dewson
- Associate Professor Isabelle Lucet
- Associate Professor James Vince
- Associate Professor Jason Tye-Din
- Associate Professor Jeanne Tie
- Associate Professor Jeff Babon
- Associate Professor Joan Heath
- Associate Professor John Wentworth
- Associate Professor Justin Boddey
- Associate Professor Kate Sutherland
- Associate Professor Marie-Liesse Asselin-Labat
- Associate Professor Matthew Ritchie
- Associate Professor Melissa Call
- Associate Professor Melissa Davis
- Associate Professor Misty Jenkins
- Associate Professor Nawaf Yassi
- Associate Professor Oliver Sieber
- Associate Professor Peter Czabotar
- Associate Professor Rachel Wong
- Associate Professor Rhys Allan
- Associate Professor Rosie Watson
- Associate Professor Ruth Kluck
- Associate Professor Sandra Nicholson
- Associate Professor Seth Masters
- Associate Professor Sumitra Ananda
- Associate Professor Tim Thomas
- Associate Professor Tracy Putoczki
- Chela Niall
- Deborah Carr
- Dr Alisa Glukhova
- Dr Anna Coussens
- Dr Ashley Ng
- Dr Belinda Phipson
- Dr Ben Tran
- Dr Bernhard Lechtenberg
- Dr Brad Sleebs
- Dr Drew Berry
- Dr Gwo Yaw Ho
- Dr Hamish King
- Dr Hui-Li Wong
- Dr Jacqui Gulbis
- Dr Jim Whittle
- Dr Kelly Rogers
- Dr Lucy Gately
- Dr Margaret Lee
- Dr Mary Ann Anderson
- Dr Maryam Rashidi
- Dr Matthew Call
- Dr Nadia Davidson
- Dr Nadia Kershaw
- Dr Philippe Bouillet
- Dr Rebecca Feltham
- Dr Rory Bowden
- Dr Samir Taoudi
- Dr Sarah Best
- Dr Saskia Freytag
- Dr Shabih Shakeel
- Dr Shalin Naik
- Dr Sheau Wen Lok
- Dr Stephin Vervoort
- Dr Yunshun Chen
- Guillaume Lessene
- Helene Martin
- Joh Kirby
- Kaye Wycherley
- Keely Bumsted O'Brien
- Mr Mark Eaton
- Mr Simon Monard
- Mr Steve Droste
- Ms Carolyn MacDonald
- Professor Alan Cowman
- Professor Andreas Strasser
- Professor Andrew Lew
- Professor Andrew Roberts
- Professor Anne Voss
- Professor Clare Scott
- Professor David Huang
- Professor David Komander
- Professor David Vaux
- Professor Doug Hilton
- Professor Geoff Lindeman
- Professor Gordon Smyth
- Professor Ian Wicks
- Professor Ivo Mueller
- Professor James McCarthy
- Professor James Murphy
- Professor Jane Visvader
- Professor Jerry Adams
- Professor John Silke
- Professor Ken Shortman
- Professor Leanne Robinson
- Professor Leonard C Harrison
- Professor Lynn Corcoran
- Professor Marc Pellegrini
- Professor Marco Herold
- Professor Marnie Blewitt
- Professor Melanie Bahlo
- Professor Mike Lawrence
- Professor Nicos Nicola
- Professor Peter Colman
- Professor Peter Gibbs
- Professor Phil Hodgkin
- Professor Sant-Rayn Pasricha
- Professor Stephen Nutt
- Professor Suzanne Cory
- Professor Terry Speed
- Professor Tony Papenfuss
- Professor Wai-Hong Tham
- Professor Warren Alexander
- Diseases
- Education
- PhD
- Honours
- Masters
- Clinician-scientist training
- Undergraduate
- Student research projects
- A new regulator of 'stemness' to create dendritic cell factories for immunotherapy
- Advanced imaging interrogation of pathogen induced NETosis
- Cancer driver deserts
- Cryo-electron microscopy of Wnt signalling complexes
- Deciphering the heterogeneity of breast cancer at the epigenetic and genetic levels
- Developing drugs to block malaria transmission
- Developing new computational tools for CRISPR genomics to advance cancer research
- Developing novel antibody-based methods for regulating apoptotic cell death
- Discovering novel paradigms to cure viral and bacterial infections
- Discovery and targeting of novel regulators of transcription
- Dissecting host cell invasion by the diarrhoeal pathogen Cryptosporidium
- Do membrane forces govern assembly of the deadly apoptotic pore?
- Doublecortin-like kinases, drug targets in cancer and neurological disorders
- E3 ubiquitin ligases in neurodegeneration, autoinflammation and cancer
- Engineering improved CAR-T cell therapies
- Epigenetic biomarkers of tuberculosis infection
- Exploiting cell death pathways in regulatory T cells for cancer immunotherapy
- Finding treatments for chromatin disorders of intellectual disability
- Functional epigenomics in human B cells
- Genomic rearrangement detection with third generation sequencing technology
- How does DNA damage shape disease susceptibility over a lifetime?
- How does DNA hypermutation shape the development of solid tumours?
- How platelets prevent neonatal stroke
- Human lung protective immunity to tuberculosis
- Interaction with Toxoplasma parasites and the brain
- Interactions between tumour cells and their microenvironment in non-small cell lung cancer
- Investigating the role of dysregulated Tom40 in neurodegeneration
- Investigating the role of mutant p53 in cancer
- Lupus: proteasome inhibitors and inflammation
- Machine learning methods for somatic genome rearrangement detection
- Malaria: going bananas for sex
- Measurements of malaria parasite and erythrocyte membrane interactions using cutting-edge microscopy
- Measuring susceptibility of cancer cells to BH3-mimetics
- Minimising rheumatic adverse events of checkpoint inhibitor cancer therapy
- Mutational signatures of structural variation
- Naturally acquired immune response to malaria parasites
- Predicting the effect of non-coding structural variants in cancer
- Revealing the epigenetic origins of immune disease
- Reversing antimalarial resistance in human malaria parasites
- Structural and functional analysis of DNA repair complexes
- Targeting human infective coronaviruses using alpaca antibodies
- Towards targeting altered glial biology in high-grade brain cancers
- Uncovering the real impact of persistent malaria infections
- Understanding Plasmodium falciparum invasion of red blood cells
- Understanding how malaria parasites sabotage acquisition of immunity
- Understanding malaria infection dynamics
- Understanding the mechanism of type I cytokine receptor activation
- Unveiling the heterogeneity of small cell lung cancer
- Using alpaca antibodies to understand malaria invasion and transmission
- Using combination immunotherapy to tackle heterogeneous brain tumours
- Using intravital microscopy for immunotherapy against brain tumours
- Using nanobodies to cross the blood brain barrier for drug delivery
- Using structural biology to understand programmed cell death
- School resources
- Frequently asked questions
- Student profiles
- Abebe Fola
- Andrew Baldi
- Anna Gabrielyan
- Bridget Dorizzi
- Casey Ah-Cann
- Catia Pierotti
- Emma Nolan
- Huon Wong
- Jing Deng
- Joy Liu
- Kaiseal Sarson-Lawrence
- Komal Patel
- Lilly Backshell
- Megan Kent
- Naomi Jones
- Rebecca Delconte
- Roberto Bonelli
- Rune Larsen
- Runyu Mao
- Sarah Garner
- Simona Seizova
- Wayne Cawthorne
- Wil Lehmann
- Miles Horton
- Alexandra Gurzau
- Student achievements
- Student association
- Learning Hub
- News
- Donate
- Online donation
- Ways to support
- Support outcomes
- Supporter stories
- Rotarians against breast cancer
- A partnership to improve treatments for cancer patients
- 20 years of cancer research support from the Helpman family
- A generous gift from a cancer survivor
- A gift to support excellence in Australian medical research
- An enduring friendship
- Anonymous donor helps bridge the 'valley of death'
- Renewed support for HIV eradication project
- Searching for solutions to muscular dystrophy
- Supporting research into better treatments for colon cancer
- Taking a single cell focus with the DROP-seq
- WEHI.TV
Professor Don Metcalf

Professor Don Metcalf is regarded as the ‘father of modern haematology’. He is best known for his pioneering discovery of colony stimulating factors, which have helped more than 20 million people worldwide.
Early career
Professor Metcalf began his research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in 1954 with a Carden Fellowship in cancer research from the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria (now Cancer Council Victoria). He spent his early years here studying vaccinia virus under Sir Frank Macfarlane Burnet.
He undertook postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School from 1956 to 1958, before returning to the Institute as head of the Cancer Research laboratory. In 1966, Professor Metcalf became deputy director of the Institute, under newly appointed director Sir Gustav Nossal.
Colony stimulating factors
In the early 1960s Professor Metcalf speculated that there must be a biological mechanism – one or more hormones – that controlled white blood cell production.
These white blood cells become severely depleted in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, leaving them vulnerable to serious and sometimes fatal infections.
Over a period of fifteen years Metcalf and his colleagues identified and purified four hormones that regulate blood cell production. These were dubbed ‘colony stimulating factors’, or CSFs, because they stimulated the production of white blood cells.
By the late 1980s gene cloning enabled mass production of CSFs, and they were rolled out to clinics worldwide. To date, Professor Metcalf’s discovery has benefited more than 20 million cancer patients worldwide.
CSFs also revolutionised transplant medicine, leading to new techniques for performing bone marrow transplants for patients with blood diseases such as leukaemia.
Although officially retiring in1996, Professor Metcalf continued his research at the Institute for a further 18 years, studying the regulation of normal and leukaemic blood cells. In his last months, with poor health finally preventing him from coming into the Institute, he requested a microscope be set up at home so he could continue working as long as possible.
Señor Jose Carreras
One of the first patients to benefit from Professor Metcalf’s work was famed Spanish tenor, Señor Jose Carreras.
Professor Metcalf
After being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, which did not respond to initial treatment, Señor Carreras received a treatment regime that included CSF therapy in 1987. He responded positively and recovered.
Señor Carreras visited the Institute in 1991 to meet Professor Metcalf and thank him for his role in developing the treatment. He also attended Professor Metcalf’s seventieth birthday in 1997 to sing him Happy Birthday.
Awards and honours
Professor Metcalf’s work was honoured through his election to scientific academies in Australia, the UK and the US and by the awarding of almost every major international science prize.
He was named an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1976 and a Companion of the Order (AC) in 1993.
Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research
Notable awards
2007 American Association for Cancer Research Lifetime Achievement Award
2001 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science
2001 Centenary Medal
2000 Victoria Prize
1997 AACR Lifetime Achievement Award
1995 Royal Medal of the Royal Society
1994 Gairdner Foundation International Award
1993 Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research
1989 Alfred P Sloan Prize of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation
1988 Robert Koch Prize
1988 Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences
1987 Bristol-Myer Prize for Distinguished Cancer Research
1983 Fellow of the Royal Society of London
1969 Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
Don Metcalf interviews
In 2005 Professor Metcalf was interviewed for the WEHI Revisited series (produced by Louise Darmody, Sound Memories), in which several Institute luminaries spoke about what drove them to pursue a career in medical research, and shared memories of life at the Institute.
• Don Metcalf – an early learner (6:01)
• High school challenges (3:41)
• Searching for the answers at Sydney University (7:27)
• Don Metcalf: cancer researcher at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute (4:08)
• Colony stimulating factors (10:18)
• Don’s driving force (3:24)
The interviews listed here are drawn from longer interviews that can be accessed at the National Library of Australia, Canberra, and the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne.