August 28, 2006 is the 20th anniversary of the first dose of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Gardasil, given to a teenage girl at Princess Alexandra Hospital.
The vaccine, developed by Emeritus Professor Ian Frazer AC and the late Dr Jian Zhou through their University of Queensland lab, is now offered to all children aged 12-13 years old through the school-based National Immunisation Program.
Worldwide, more than 600 million doses of Gardasil have been administered.
Professor Frazer, who serves on the board of the Translational Research Institute (TRI) Foundation, said ridding Australia of cervical cancer was a result he’d only dreamed of when he started looking into HPV in the 1980s.
“We couldn’t have imagined the impact this research would have and I feel very privileged to have been a part of this outcome,” Professor Frazer said.
It also safeguards against many cases of throat, genital, and anal cancer.
Professor Frazer’s research leadership was evident during his clinical work as the Director of Clinical Immunology at Princess Alexandra Hospital from 1985. These close ties to the hospital continue since the opening of the Translational Research Institute on the campus in 2012.
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