| Authorised form of name | Alpers; Michael Philip (1934 - 2025); medical researcher |
| Dates | 1934 - 2025 |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Place of birth | Adelaide, Australia |
| Date of birth | 21 January 1934 |
| Place of death | Perth, Australia |
| Date of death | 3 December 2025 |
| DatesAndPlaces | Memorial service: West Chapel at Fremantle Cemetery, Western Australia |
| Occupation | Medical researcher |
| Research field | Medicine |
| Anthropology |
| Microbiology |
| Activity | Education:
University of Adelaide B.Sc; M.B.B.S; Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge M.A 1957
Career:
John Curtin Distinguished Professor, Centre for International Health, Curtin University of Technology
Investigated the obscure neurological disease kuru that was causing the deaths of hundreds of Fore people in Papua New Guinea’s Eastern Highlands Provinceas research doctor at the Okapa patrol post with the Department of Public Health in New Guinea; research officer (1961-63); visiting scientist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland (1964-67); research fellow, department of microbiology at the University of Western Australia (1968-76) with annual field trips to Papua New Guinea; Director of the PNG Institute of Medical Research (1977-2000); returned to Perth where he became the John Curtin Distinguished Professor of International Health at Curtin University and also serving as a senior scientist at the Medical Research Council Prion Unit at University College London.
Memberships:
Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences
Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (FAA)
Awards/Medals:
Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) 2005
Companion of the Papua New Guinea Order of the Star of Melanesia (CSM) 2008
Medal of The Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science 2020 |
| Membership category | Fellow |
| Date of election | 15/05/2008 |
| Age at election | 74 |
| Relationships | Partner: Professor Deborah Lehmann AO |
| PublishedWorks | RCN R79793 |
| OtherInfo | Combined a sensitive understanding of the isolated Fore people in Papua New Guinea with his medical training to reveal how the degenerative brain disease kuru was transmitted. His findings are of central importance in understanding related prion diseases, including BSE and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Collaborating in the 1960s with Carleton Gajdusek, who later won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Michael collected samples of brain tissue from deceased victims in their villages. Their experiments confirmed that women and children contracted kuru through the recently outlawed funerary ritual of eating the brains of dead relatives.
Michael continued to monitor the population: the last death from kuru occurred in 2009. The research laboratory he established on the island has also investigated other infectious diseases, including malaria. In 2005, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia, and in 2008 a Companion of the Papua New Guinean Order of the Star of Melanesia. |
| Source | The Royal Society Fellows Directory, Professor Michael Alpers AO FRS, [URL: https://royalsociety.org/people/michael-alpers-10987/; last accessed: 23/04/2025]
Papua New Guinea Association of Australia, In memoriam: Emeritus ProfessorMichael Alpers AO, CSM, FRS, FAA, 6 March 2025, [URL: https://pngaa.org/article/in-memoriam-emeritus-professormichael-alpers-ao-csm-frs-faa/; last accessed: 23/04/2025]
St Mark's College, Latest News, Remembering Professor Michael Alpers AO, Distinguished Collegian, and pioneering medical scientist, 17 December 2024, [URL: https://stmarkscollege.com.au/news/remembering-professor-michael-alpers-ao-distinguished-collegian-and-pioneering-medical-scientist/; last accessed: 23/04/2025] |
| Code | NA9544 |
Archives associated with this Fellow
| RefNo | Title | Date |
| EC/2008/03 | Alpers, Michael: certificate of election to the Royal Society | 15 May 2008 |