Ian Gust

  • Professor
  • 2014
  • Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the University of Melbourne
  • AO, MD, BS, BSC, DipBact, FRCPA, FRACP, MASM, FT

Professor Ian Gust is an Australian medical researcher, virologist, and former science administrator. His area of work is in the development of drugs and vaccines against viral diseases and he is best known for the development of vaccines against the Hepatitis A virus. He currently serves as a non–executive company director and consultant. After an initial residency at The Alfred Hospital, Professor Gust was appointed as a pathology registrar at the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital, Melbourne; then spending two years in the United Kingdom at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the WHO Regional Virus Laboratory in Glasgow. He returned to Fairfield in 1970 and was appointed a medical virologist at the Infectious Diseases Hospital, a position he held for over twenty years.

During this period, Fairfield gained a world wide reputation for virology education, research and treatment. The laboratory was the first to isolate hepatitis A virus and one of the first strains of respiratory syncytial virus (the A2 strain, now a reference A group virus).

In 1985, Professor Gust was appointed as the inaugural director of the of Macfarlane Burnet Centre for Medical Research, Fairfield Hospital, now commonly known as the Burnet Institute, holding this position until 1991. Between 1991 and 2008, he served as director of research and development for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, now listed as CSL Limited, where he was closely involved in the company’s successful expansion in Australia and internationally.

Since his retirement, he has been a Professorial Fellow in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in the University of Melbourne, and as a consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; to UNICEF, the World Bank and the World Health Organisation. A non–executive director of biotechnology company, Biota Holdings Limited, since 2001, he is also a director of Promics Pty Ltd.

Professor Gust served variously as a member of WHO expert committees on viral hepatitis (1974, 1979, 1982), biological standardisation (1992), and virus diseases (1975, 1985-1991). He has been a Director of the National Hepatitis Reference Centre (1979-1990) and between 1989 and 1992 served as the Commonwealth Chief Medical and Scientific Adviser on AIDS