| Citation | Professor Michael Alpers is distinguished for many important contributions to tropical medicine. The majority of these were made from Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research which he led for 23 years and developed into a world-renowned institution. He made major contributions to research into malaria, pneumonia and filariases, but is best known for his seminal work on kuru. He first defined the disease clinically and then comprehensively characterised its epidemiology. He developed the hypothesis of mortuary practices as the natural mode of transmission and played a key role in experimental transmission studies to confirm the infefctious aetiology of kuru which he continues to study amongst th affected population. |