Sir Macfarlane Burnet was one of the twentieth century's most outstanding biologists. This official biography is based on exclusive interviews and free access to his diaries and letters.Through his inspiration, the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute became a leader in the fields of virology and immunology, and his own theorizing on the body's immune system earned him the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1960. The author of numerous books on science and society, genetics, cancer, andageing, Burnet also held radical views on conservation, uranium mining, smoking, the population explosion, and mercy killing. Christopher Sexton's portrait is a frank and perceptive study of a fiercely private man.