Donald Metcalf

Professor  Donald Metcalf AC FRS (born 26 February 1929) is an Australian physiologist 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, a fellowship that he still holds as of 2007.

Metcalf's pioneering research revealed the control of blood cell formation and the role of hematopoietic cytokines. He described the function of the thymus gland in the control of lymphocyte formation. In the 1960s he developed techniques to culture blood cells, which led to the discovery of colony-stimulating factors (CSFs). CSFs are hormones that control white blood cell formation and are responsible for resistance to infection.

He was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize from Columbia University and Lasker Award in 1993, the Sloan Prize, and, in 2001, he received the Prime Minister's Prize for Science.

He has four daughters and six grandchildren

He currently lives in Melbourne with his wife, Josephine Metcalf. .

Biography

 * Donald Metcalf. Summon up the Blood: In dogged pursuit of the blood cell regulators. AlphaMed Press, Dayton, Ohio, USA, 2000. ISBN 1-88085-428-7.