Donald Metcalf


Donald Metcalf AC FRS FAA was an Australian medical researcher who spent most of his career at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne. In 1954 he received the Carden Fellowship from the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria; while he officially retired in 1996, he continued working and held his fellowship until his retirement in December 2014.

Education, research and career

Metcalf studied medicine at the University of Sydney, and had his first experience of medical research in the laboratory of Professor Patrick de Burgh. In 1954 Metcalf was awarded a Carden Fellowship from the Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research. There he initially studied virology and leukemia, later transitioning to hematology.
Metcalf's pioneering research revealed the control of blood cell formation and the role of hematopoietic cytokines. In the 1960s he developed techniques to culture blood cells, which led to the discovery of colony-stimulating factors, including macrophage colony-stimulating factor, granulocyte colony-stimulating factor and granulocyte macrophage colony-stimulating factor. CSFs are cytokines that control white blood cell formation and are responsible for resistance to infection. CSFs are now widely used to boost the immune system for patients receiving chemotherapy, and to mobilise blood stem cells for transplants.

Awards and honours

In the Australia Day Honours of 1976, he was named an Officer of the Order of Australia. In the Queen's Birthday Honours of 1993, he was promoted to Companion of the Order.
Metcalf has been awarded many international prizes including
In Australia Metcalf has received the 1985 James Cook Medal, the 2000 Victoria Prize, the 2001 Prime Minister's Prize for Science and the Centenary Medal.

Personal life

Metcalf has four daughters and six grandchildren. He lived in Melbourne with his wife, Josephine, and died on 15 December 2014 following pancreatic cancer.
His autobiography Summon up the Blood: In dogged pursuit of the blood cell regulators was published in 2000.