# Ian Frazer

Source: https://onco.cc/people/ian-frazer/  
OnCo record `ian-frazer` (Person). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

In 1991 he and Jian Zhou made HPV virus-like particles in the laboratory, the basis of the vaccines that could eliminate cervical cancer. Australia, where the vaccine was rolled out first, is on course to do so.

## Summary

Ian Frazer, a Scottish-born clinical immunologist at the University of Queensland, worked with the virologist Jian Zhou from 1990 on how to make a vaccine against a virus that could not be grown in culture. In 1991 they assembled the HPV L1 capsid protein into empty virus-like particles that carried the shape of the virus without its DNA, and patented the approach; parallel work at the US National Cancer Institute by Douglas Lowy and John Schiller, at Georgetown and at Rochester contributed to the vaccines. Gardasil was licensed in 2006 and Cervarix in 2007. Australia introduced school-based vaccination in 2007 and, combined with HPV-based screening, is projected to become the first country to eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem. Frazer was named Australian of the Year in 2006 and led the Translational Research Institute in Brisbane.

## Fields

- Kind: Person
- Last checked: 2026-09-09
- Tags: hero; pioneer
- Role: Immunologist who, with Jian Zhou, created the technology behind the HPV vaccine
- Specialisms: Immunology; HPV vaccines; Cervical cancer prevention

## Sources

- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Frazer
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Frazer
- University of Queensland: the HPV vaccine: https://www.uq.edu.au/

## Connected records

- cancers: [Cervical cancer](https://onco.cc/cancers/cervical/)
- fronts: [Prevention & Risk](https://onco.cc/fronts/prevention/)
- technologies: [HPV & HBV vaccination](https://onco.cc/technologies/hpv-vaccine/)
- drugs: [Nonavalent HPV vaccine](https://onco.cc/drugs/gardasil-9/)
- institutions: [The University of Queensland Frazer Institute](https://onco.cc/institutions/uq-frazer-institute/)
- trials: [KEN SHE (single-dose HPV vaccine)](https://onco.cc/trials/ken-she/)
- people: [Bill Gates](https://onco.cc/people/bill-gates/), [Denise A. Galloway](https://onco.cc/people/denise-galloway/), [Douglas R. Lowy](https://onco.cc/people/douglas-lowy/), [Harald zur Hausen](https://onco.cc/people/harald-zur-hausen/), [Jian Zhou](https://onco.cc/people/jian-zhou/)
- bottlenecks: [Most of the world has almost no cancer care](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-global-access/), [Prevention we already have is not deployed](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-prevention-adoption/)

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JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/ian-frazer.json