Gordon Ada

Who is Gordon Ada?

Gordon Leslie Ada AO, FAA was an Australian biochemist best known for his seminal contributions to virology and immunology and his long leadership of the Department of Microbiology at the John Curtin School of Medical Research at the Australian National University, where Peter C. Doherty and Rolf Zinkernagel performed their Nobel winning research in his department. Both Zinkernagel and Doherty held him in high regard, and he was invited by them to attend the Nobel award ceremony and dinner in Stockholm.

Gordon Ada was born in 1922 in Sydney. He studied at Fort Street High School, then at the University of Sydney, graduating BSc in 1943, and MSc in 1946. After completing his Masters he went to London to work for the National Institute for Medical Research, staying in London until 1948. When he returned to Australia, he conducted research at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research under director Frank Macfarlane Burnet and was involved in the establishment of the Biochemistry and Biophysics Research Unit with Henry Holden. At the Hall Institute he initially worked on the viruses that cause influenza and Murray Valley encephalitis. He was the first to establish that influenza is an RNA virus and was awarded his DSc by the University of Sydney in 1959. From 1962 he focused on immune reactions, demonstrating that antigens are not present in antibody-producing cells, in support of Burnet's clonal selection theory.